John Q. Trojanowski

Early life and education John Quinn Trojanowski was born on December 17, 1946, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, as the second of the seven children of Maurice Trojanowski and Margaret (Quinn) Trojanowski. Trojanowski earned his undergraduate degree from King's College, then obtained his M.D./Ph.D. in 1976 from Tufts University in Boston. After a medicine internship at Mount Auburn Hospital and Harvard Medical School, he began pathology/neuropathology training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School (1977–1979). He completed training at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1980 where he was appointed assistant professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine on January 1, 1981, and rose to the rank of tenured full professor in 1990.

To help the public understand what is needed to cure and/or prevent disorders like AD, Trojanowski led an effort to prepare two educational films, Shining a Light on Alzheimer’s Disease . . . through Research and Taking the Steps to Healthy Brain Aging, on Alzheimer's disease and healthy brain aging funded by a grant from the Metropolitan Life Foundation Grant that air on PBS.

Trojanowski held several leadership positions at the University of Pennsylvania including: Director of Medical Pathology (1988–2002); Director of a National Institute of Aging (NIA) Alzheimer's Disease Center (1991–2022); Co-Director (1992–2022) of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research; Interim Director (2001–2002) and Director (2002–2022) of the Institute on Aging; Co-director of the Marian S. Ware Alzheimer Drug Discovery Program (2004–2022); and Director, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Morris K. Udall Parkinson's Disease Research Center of Excellence (2007–2022). He was also the first William Maul Measey–Truman G. Schnabel, Jr., M.D., Professor of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology (2003–2022).

Trojanowski died in Philadelphia from complications of chronic spinal cord injuries on February 8, 2022, at the age of 75.

Awards Trojanowski received several awards for his research, including: National Institutes of Health MERIT Award Charter Fellow, National Academy of Inventors (2012) J. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine, Molecular Basis of Neurological Disorders, Robarts Research Institute (2014) Award for Meritorious Contributions to Neuropathology, American Association of Neuropathologists (2015) Alzheimer's Association Lifetime Achievement Award in Alzheimer's Disease Research (2018)