Dr Andrew Singleton received his B.Sc. from the University of Sunderland, UK and his Ph.D. from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. His research initially focused on genetic determinants of dementia, in particular Alzheimer’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. His postdoctoral studies were spent at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville Florida.

 

Dr Singleton moved to the National Institute on Aging at NIH Bethesda, MD in 2001 and became a principal investigator leading the Molecular Genetics Unit in 2002. In 2007, Dr Singleton became a tenured senior investigator at the National Institute on Aging, in 2008 he became the Chief of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics, and in 2016 he was named an NIH Distinguished Investigator.  

 

Dr Singleton has published more than 600 articles on a wide variety of topics. His laboratory comprises ~60 staff, including six principal investigators and three group leaders. His laboratory works on the genetic basis of neurological disorders including Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer’s disease, dystonia, ataxia, dementia with Lewy bodies, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The goal of this research is to identify genetic variability that causes or contributes to disease and to use this knowledge to understand the molecular processes underlying disease. Most recently his work has expanded to the use of multimodal data in predicting disease.  

Dr Singleton currently serves on the scientific advisory board of the Lewy Body Dementia Association; he is a member of the editorial boards of Neurodegenerative Diseases, Neurobiology of Disease (Associate Editor), Neurogenetics, Movement Disorders (Associate Editor), Brain (Associate Editor), Lancet Neurology, the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease, NPJ Parkinson’s Disease (Associate Editor), and the Journal of Huntington’s Disease.

 

Dr Singleton was awarded the Boehringer Mannheim Research Award in 2005, the NIH Director’s Award in 2008 and again in 2016, and the Annemarie Opprecht Award for Parkinson’s disease research in 2008. In 2012 he became the first person to win the Jay van Andel Award for Outstanding Achievement in Parkinson’s Disease Research. In 2017, Dr Singleton was awarded the American Academy of Neurology Movement Disorders Award and an Honorary Doctorate from his alma mater, the University of Sunderland. In 2019 he was awarded the Robert A. Pritzker Prize for Leadership in Parkinson’s Research.