BG 35 RM 2A100
35 CONVENT DR
BETHESDA MD 20814
Dr. Blackstone received B.S. and M.S. degrees in 1987 from the University of Chicago and M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in 1994 from Johns Hopkins University. His graduate studies, in the laboratory of Richard Huganir, were on the structure and regulation of glutamate receptors, for which he received the David Israel Macht Award. After a neurology residency at the Harvard-Longwood Neurology Program, Dr. Blackstone completed a fellowship in clinical movement disorders at the Massachusetts General Hospital. During this time he also conducted postdoctoral research with Morgan Sheng at Harvard Medical School, investigating the functions of proteins implicated in hereditary dystonias. Dr. Blackstone joined the NINDS as an investigator in 2001. His NINDS laboratory investigated the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying hereditary movement disorders. In 2020, Dr. Blackstone left NIH to become Chief of the Movement Disorders Division at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Blackstone's research group investigates cellular mechanisms underlying inherited neurological disorders, with an emphasis on neuromuscular and movement disorders. In particular, the pathogenesis of hereditary spastic paraplegias, which affect corticospinal motor axons in a length-dependent manner, is an area of very active interest.