University of Maryland School of Medicine Neurology Chair Peter B. Crino, MD, PhD, Receives Prestigious Neuroscience Award

Seven-year Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award Given to Dr. Crino for Cutting-Edge Research

University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) Dean E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA announced today that Peter B. Crino, MD, PhD, Professor and Chair of UMSOM’s Department of Neurology, has received the Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award (R37), which provides $2.7 million in total funding.

Dr. Crino was selected from a competing pool of applicants for the highly selective award upon the recommendation of the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Council, an Institute within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award is given initially for a period of four years, after which, based on an administrative review, an additional project period of three years may be awarded. Awardees must have demonstrated exceptional scientific excellence and productivity in one of the areas of neurological research supported by the NINDS, have proposals of the highest scientific merit, and be judged highly likely to be able to continue to do research on the cutting edge of their science for the next seven years.

Mandated by the U.S. Congress, the Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award was established in 1983 to honor the late Senator Jacob Javits (R-NY), who for several years was a victim of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a degenerative neurological disorder also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. Senator Javits was a strong advocate for support of research in a wide variety of disorders of the brain and nervous system.

“I am very humbled, honored, and grateful to be chosen for the Javits Award. I want to share the credit for the award with my laboratory staff, who have helped to drive our research program for the past two decades,” said Dr. Crino. “There is still so much work to be done to understand the causes of epilepsy and autism and to hopefully achieve new therapeutic strategies for individuals facing these challenges every day. The Javits Award will greatly augment our lab progress and productivity in these critical areas of research,” he said.

Dr. Crino is an internationally recognized physician-scientist specializing in developmental brain disorders. Over the last 20 years, his laboratory has had continuous funding from the National Institutes of Health, through which he has four grants totaling $4.1 million. His lab studies mechanisms of altered brain development associated with autism, intellectual disability, and epilepsy, defining developmental disorders associated with intractable epilepsy, including malformations of cerebral cortical development and tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC).  He has collaborated on identifying several new genes associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, pioneered single cell mRNA and DNA sequencing analysis in resected human tissues, and has used mouse models to plumb the effects of mTOR regulatory genes on neuronal and cerebral cortical development. Dr. Crino also has coauthored over 170 peer-reviewed manuscripts, chapters, and reviews, and has been invited to lecture all over the world.

“I congratulate Dr. Crino for his spectacular achievement as the recipient of the Javits Award. This singular acknowledgment of his accomplished career is one in which we all can share a collective sense of pride, as another of our ‘best and brightest’ receives national recognition,” said E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, UM Baltimore, and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM).

Dr. Crino's grant research involves a collaboration with Dr. Andrew Crosby and Dr. Emma Baple at the University of Exeter in the U.K. who were co-applicants on the grant.

About the University of Maryland School of Medicine

Now in its third century, the University of Maryland School of Medicine was chartered in 1807 as the first public medical school in the United States. It continues today as one of the fastest growing, top-tier biomedical research enterprises in the world -- with 46 academic departments, centers, institutes, and programs, and a faculty of more than 3,000 physicians, scientists, and allied health professionals, including members of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences, and a distinguished two-time winner of the Albert E. Lasker Award in Medical Research.  With an operating budget of more than $1.2 billion, the School of Medicine works closely in partnership with the University of Maryland Medical Center and Medical System to provide research-intensive, academic and clinically based care for nearly 2 million patients each year. The School of Medicine has nearly $600 million in extramural funding, with most of its academic departments highly ranked among all medical schools in the nation in research funding.  As one of the seven professional schools that make up the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus, the School of Medicine has a total population of nearly 9,000 faculty and staff, including 2,500 students, trainees, residents, and fellows. The combined School of Medicine and Medical System (“University of Maryland Medicine”) has an annual budget of over $6 billion and an economic impact of nearly $20 billion on the state and local community. The School of Medicine, which ranks as the 8th highest among public medical schools in research productivity (according to the Association of American Medical Colleges profile) is an innovator in translational medicine, with 606 active patents and 52 start-up companies.  In the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of the Best Medical Schools, published in 2021, the UM School of Medicine is ranked #9 among the 92 public medical schools in the U.S., and in the top 15 percent (#27) of all 192 public and private U.S. medical schools.  The School of Medicine works locally, nationally, and globally, with research and treatment facilities in 36 countries around the world. Visit medschool.umaryland.edu