John Anthony Hardy

Sir John Anthony Hardy is a human geneticist and molecular biologist at the Reta Lila Weston Institute of Neurological Studies at University College London with research interests in neurological diseases.

Education Hardy attended St Ambrose College in the late 1960s, where his interest in biochemistry was encouraged by his biology teacher, Mrs Cox. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Leeds in 1976 and his PhD from Imperial College London in 1981 He became Associate Professor in 1989 and then took the Pfeiffer Endowed Chair of Alzheimer's Research at the University of South Florida, in Tampa in 1992. In 1996 he moved to Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, as Consultant and Professor of Neuroscience.

He became Chair of Neuroscience in 2000 and moved to National Institute on Aging, Bethesda, Maryland, as Chief of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics in 2001. In 2007 he took up the Chair of Molecular Biology of Neurological Disease at the Reta Lila Weston Institute of Neurological Studies, University College London.

On 29 November 2015, he was awarded the Breakthrough Prize.

In 2018, Hardy, along with Christian Haass, Bart De Strooper and Michel Goedert, received the Brain Prize for "groundbreaking research on the genetic and molecular basis of Alzheimer's disease."

Awards and honours Among other awards and honours, Hardy has won the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for dissecting the causes of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and frontotemporal dementia; the MetLife prize for research into Alzheimer's disease, and the Potamkin Prize for his work in describing the first genetic mutations in the amyloid gene in Alzheimer's disease, in 1991. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 2009.

2023 - Honorary Doctor of the University of Rijeka 2023 - Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences 2022 New Year Honours 2022 - Mayo Clinic Distinguished Alumni Award 2018 – The Brain Prize 2017 – Honorary Doctor of Science, Leeds University 2015 – Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences 2015 – Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) 2014 – The Michael J. Fox Foundation award for Parkinson research 2014 – Thudichum Medal from the Biochemical Society 2014 – Dan David Prize 2011 – Elected Fellow of the Institute of Biology 2010 – Honorary Doctor of Science, Newcastle University 2009 – Elected Fellow of the Royal Society 2008 – Honorary MD, Umeå University, Sweden, 2008 – Elected a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) 1993 – Potamkin Prize from the American Academy of Neurology, for Alzheimer's Research 1992 – IPSEN Prize for Research into Alzheimer's Disease 1991 – Peter Debje Prize, University of Limburg, Belgium, For Alzheimer's Research