Michael A. Moskowitz
Michael A. Moskowitz
Professor Moskowitz was born in Brooklyn, New York. He received his undergraduate and medical degrees from Johns Hopkins University and Tufts University School of Medicine. His laboratory has been in the departments of Radiology, Neurosurgery and Neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital where he spent most of his career following 8 years as a postdoctoral fellow and faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Michael A. Moskowitz is professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.
Michael Moskowitz became intrigued by migraine after 6 years of clinical training in internal medicine and neurology at Yale and Harvard Hospitals. He was the first to hypothesize that vasoactive neuropeptides contained within trigeminal meningeal nerve fibers participate in migraine pathophysiology and to suggest new strategies for prophylaxis and treatment. After discovering the sensory nerves to the circle of Willis within the meninges, penning the name trigeminovascular system and identifying the first neuropeptide in this pathway, he proposed a migraine road map that implicated trigeminal neuropeptides and their receptors as therapeutic targets.
His laboratory showed that classical antimigraine drugs (ergots, triptans) inhibited neuropeptide release, thereby inspiring use of drugs and biologicals that block release and inhibit a meningeal inflammatory response. Building on this scheme, his laboratory looked for upstream endogenous triggers and identified spreading depression (underlying migraine aura) as the first candidate that activated the trigeminovascular system and as a target of preventative antimigraine drugs. Identifying other upstream triggers, whether from brain or blood vessels, will greatly facilitate our understanding of migraine going forward.
Based on his research and that of his co-honorees, more than 20 new drugs and biologicals are now in the clinic that impact the trigeminovascular system and its upstream and downstream targets.
The Brain Prize 2021 is also awarded to:
