Arnold Kriegstein, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor of neurology, the John Bowes Distinguished Professor in Stem Cell and Tissue Biology, and the director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Kriegstein received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from New York University and his undergraduate degree from Yale University. He completed his residence training in neurology at Harvard University and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Beth Israel Hospital and the Boston Children’s Hospital, and has held academic appointments at Stanford University, Yale University and Columbia University.

Kriegstein has an international reputation for his research in the areas of neocortical development, neural differentiation, and neural stem and progenitor cell biology. He has received several awards including the Stanford University William M. Hume Faculty Scholar and a Javits Award from the NIH, and he was elected to the National Institute of Medicine in 2008.

As director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research, Kriegstein oversees one of the largest and most comprehensive stem cell programs in the United States, which encompasses over 120 laboratories carrying out studies aimed at gaining fundamental information about human development, with an eye toward illuminating and treating a broad range of diseases and disorders, from heart disease and diabetes to cancer and neurological disorders, including epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and brain injury. His own research focuses on the way in which neural stem and progenitor cells in the embryonic brain produce neurons, and ways in which this information can be used for cell-based therapies to treat diseases of the nervous system.