John Morris is the Harvey and Dorismae Hacker Friedman Distinguished Professor of Neurology, Professor of Pathology and Immunology, Professor of Physical Therapy, and Director of the Memory and Aging Project, and the Center for Aging at Washington University. He also is the Director and Principal Investigator of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.

Dr. Morris is the Principal Investigator of two program projects, "Healthy Aging and Senile Dementia," and "Antecedent Biomarkers for AD: The Adult Children Study" and the center grant, "Alzheimer Disease Research Center," all funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA). He directs Washington University's Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging. In the Medical School's Department of Neurology, Dr. Morris serves as Head of the Dementia and Aging Section.
Dr. Morris is a member of the Alzheimer's Association's Medical & Scientific Advisory Committee. He chairs the Clinical Task Force for the National Institute on Aging and its Alzheimer Disease Centers program. He is author or co-author of over 250 peer-reviewed journal articles and 50 chapters and reviews. He edited the the first and second editions of the Handbook of Dementing Illnesses. He has received many honors, including the Distinguished Achievement Citation from his alma mater, Ohio Wesleyan University (2000), the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Alzheimer's Association (2004), the 2004 MetLife Foundation Award for Medical Research, the 2005 Potamkin Prize for Research in Pick's, Alzheimer's, and Related Disease from the American Academy of Neurology and the Physician-Scientist Lifetime Achievement Award (2005) and the 2006 Dr. Neville Grant Award for Clinical Excellence from the Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation (St. Louis, Missouri). In 2008, he received the 2008 Washington University Academic Women's Network Mentor Award.

The focus of Dr. Morris' research and practice is Alzheimer's disease and other neurological disorders associated with aging. Specific research interests include detecting preclinical Alzheimer's disease, improving the diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer's disease, evaluating new drugs for the treatment of dementia, and establishing phenotypes for inherited forms of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.

Medical Training

Dr. Morris received his B.A. from Ohio Wesleyan University. After receiving his MD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in Rochester, NY, in 1974, he completed his internship at San Francisco General Hospital before joining a private practice as a family physician in Fairbanks, Alaska (1975-76) and then directing the Emergency Room at Carlsbad Regional Medical Center in New Mexico (1976-77). Dr. Morris received board certification in Internal Medicine and Neurology after returning to Ohio to complete residency programs in medicine (Akron General Medical Center) and neurology (Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital). He joined Washington University School of Medicine in 1982 as a postdoctoral fellow in neuropharmacology and as an Instructor in Neurology in 1983. Dr. Morris was named as the Harvey A. and Dorismae Hacker Friedman Professor of Neurology in 1998 and Distinguished Professor in 2003.

Selected Publications

Morris JC, Weintraub S, Chui H, Cummings J, DeCarli C, Ferris S, Foster NL, Galasko D, Graff-Radford N, Peskind ER, Beekly D, Ramos EM, Kukull WA. The Uniform Data Set (UDS): Clinical and cognitive variables and descriptive data from Alzheimer Disease Centers. ADAD 2006; 20:210-216.

Storandt M, Grant EA, Miller JP, Morris JC. Longitudinal course and neuropathological outcomes in original versus revised MCI and in PreMCI. Neurology 2006; 67:467-473.
Mintun MA, LaRossa GN, Sheline YI, Dence CS,Lee SY, Mach RH, Klunk WE, Mathis CA, DeKosky ST, Morris JC. [11C]PIB in a nondemented population: potential antecedent marker of Alzheimer disease. Neurology 2006; 67:446-452.
Fagan AM, Roe CM, Xiong C, Mintun MA, Morris JC, Holtzman DM. Cerebrospinal fluid tau/β-amyloid42 ratio as a prediction of cognitive decline in nondemented older adults. Arch Neurol 2007; 64.343-349.

Roe CM, Xiong C, Miller JP, Morris JC. Education and Alzheimer's disease without dementia; support for the cognitive reserve hypothesis. Neurology 2007; 68:223-228.