Mark Anthony Smith (August 15, 1965 – December 19, 2010) was a professor of

pathology Pathology is the study of the causes and effects of disease or injury. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in ...

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

, where he also served as the Director of Basic Science Research at the University Memory and Aging Center. At the time of his death, he had been serving as Executive Director of the

American Aging Association The American Aging Association is a non-profit, tax-exempt biogerontology organization of scientists and laypeople dedicated to biomedical aging studies and geroscience, with the goal of slowing the aging process to extend the healthy human lifes ...

. Smith served as Editor-in Chief of ''

Journal of Alzheimer's Disease The ''Journal of Alzheimer's Disease'' is a peer-reviewed medical journal published by IOS Press covering the etiology, pathogenesis, epidemiology, genetics, treatment, and psychology of Alzheimer's disease. The journal publishes research repo ...

'' and also sat on the Editorial Board of over 20 leading journals including ''

Science Translational Medicine ''Science Translational Medicine'' is an interdisciplinary medical journal established in October 2009 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It covers basic, translational, and clinical research on human diseases. According ...

'', '' Discovery Medicine'', ''

Journal of Neurochemistry The ''Journal of Neurochemistry'' is a biweekly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of neurochemistry. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the International Society for Neurochemistry and was established in 1956. The e ...

'', Journal of Pathology and ''

The American Journal of Pathology ''The American Journal of Pathology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering pathology. It is published by Elsevier on behalf of the American Society for Investigative Pathology, of which it is an official journal. The editor-in-chi ...

''. He is recognized in the field of

Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurodegeneration, neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and progressively worsens. It is the cause of 60–70% of cases of dementia. The most common early symptom is difficulty in short-term me ...

research particularly for his work on

oxidative stress Oxidative stress reflects an imbalance between the systemic manifestation of reactive oxygen species and a biological system's ability to readily Detoxification, detoxify the reactive intermediates or to repair the resulting damage. Disturbances ...

mitochondria A mitochondrion (; ) is an organelle found in the Cell (biology), cells of most Eukaryotes, such as animals, plants and Fungus, fungi. Mitochondria have a double lipid bilayer, membrane structure and use aerobic respiration to generate adenosi ...

dysfunction and cell cycle re-entry and, with a

h-index The ''h''-index is an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications, initially used for an individual scientist or scholar. The ''h''-index correlates with obvious success indicators such as winn ...

of 73 and over 800 peer-review articles and reviews that have received over 21,000 citations, he was named as one of the top Alzheimer's disease researchers in the world, one of the top 100 most-cited scientists in Neuroscience & Behavior and one of the top 25 scientists in free radical research. His many honors included the Jordi Folch-Pi Award from the

American Society for Neurochemistry The American Society for Neurochemistry (ASN) is a professional society for neurochemists and neuroscientists from North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean, whose research concerns the role and interactions of small molecules (protein ...

, the ASIP Outstanding Investigator Award from the American Society for Investigative Pathology and being elected as a Fellow of the

Royal College of Pathologists The Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath) is a professional membership organisation. Its main function is the overseeing of postgraduate training, and its Fellowship Examination (FRCPath) is recognised as the standard assessment of fitness to pr ...

, a Fellow of the American Aging Association, and a Fellow of

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

, the world's largest scientific organization. He had been awarded the Goudie Lecture & Medal of the

Pathological Society The Pathological Society is a professional organisation of Great Britain and Ireland whose mission is stated as 'understanding disease'. Membership and profile The membership of the society is mainly drawn from the UK and includes an internat ...

but died before he could deliver the lecture.

Biography

Mark A. Smith, son of John Smith (born 1936; underground coal miner

Longwall mining Longwall mining is a form of underground coal mining where a long wall of coal is mined in a single slice (typically thick). The longwall panel (the block of coal that is being mined) is typically long (but can be upto long) and wide. Histor ...

) and Rita Joyce Smith (1935–2004;

housewife A housewife (also known as a homemaker or a stay-at-home mother/mom/mum) is a woman whose role is running or managing her family's home—housekeeping, which includes caring for her children; cleaning and maintaining the home; making, buying an ...

), grew up in

Wigston Magna Wigston, or Wigston Magna, is a town in Leicestershire, England, just south of Leicester on the A5199. It had a population of 32,321 in 2011. Geography Wigston is south of the city of Leicester, at the centre of Leicestershire and the Ea ...

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city l ...

, where he attended

Bushloe High School Bushloe High School was a middle school with academy status located in Wigston, Leicestershire, England. Admissions It was a middle school, using the three-tier education system (invented in Leicestershire in the early 1960s as part of the '' ...

. After receiving a full scholarship (grant), he became the first in his family to attend university/college and, in 1986, received a B.Sc. with honors in Molecular Biology & Biochemistry from

Durham University , mottoeng = Her foundations are upon the holy hills (Psalm 87:1) , established = (university status) , type = Public , academic_staff = 1,830 (2020) , administrative_staff = 2,640 (2018/19) , chancellor = Sir Thomas Allen , vice_chan ...

, and, in 1990, a Ph.D. in

Biochemistry Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...

from the

University of Nottingham The University of Nottingham is a public university, public research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948. The University of Nottingham belongs t ...

. After a brief immersion in the

pharmaceutical industry The pharmaceutical industry discovers, develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medications to be administered to patients (or self-administered), with the aim to cure them, vaccinate them, or alleviate symptoms. ...

as a postdoctoral biochemist in the Division of Immunodermatology at Sandoz Forschungsinstitut (now

Novartis Novartis AG is a Swiss-American multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland and Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (global research).name="novartis.com">https://www.novartis.com/research-development/research-loc ...

) in Vienna, Austria, he began working in 1992 at

where he was one of the most prolific and the most cited faculty member on campus, numerically accounting for over 1% of publications and 4% of citations over the past years (data from

Institute for Scientific Information The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) was an academic publishing service, founded by Eugene Garfield in Philadelphia in 1956. ISI offered scientometric and bibliographic database services. Its specialty was citation indexing and analysis, ...

). Smith was struck by a car and killed on December 19, 2010.

Research

The focus of the research undertaken by Smith's research involves investigating the pathological mechanism(s) underlying selective neuronal death in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease. Further this research involves a variety of techniques including histology, state of the art molecular and cell biology and cellular and animal models of disease that are directed toward diagnostic, mechanistic, and therapeutic strategies. Current projects are directed towards 1) fundamental metabolic alterations; 2) homeostatic dysregulation of transition metals; 3) signal transduction alterations; and 4) inappropriate re-entry into the cell cycle. Smith collaborated with and co-authored works with, amongst others, Drs. Rudolph J. Castellani Jr. and George Perry.

Community service

Smith served on the Professional Advisory Board of the Cleveland chapter of the

Alzheimer's Association The Alzheimer's Association was founded by Jerome H. Stone with the help of several family members in Chicago, Illinois, and incorporated on April 10, 1980, as the Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association, Inc. It is a non-profit Ame ...

and was Team Captain of a group of local researchers ("A Cure From Cleveland") that participates in the annual fund raising Memory Walk for the Alzheimer's Association. In addition, Smith donated his time as a frequent guest speaker at local caregiver groups and at a variety of community events.

References

External links

Alzheimer Research Forum Profile

Discovery Medicine

Researcher ID
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Mark A. American neuroscientists 1965 births 2010 deaths Road incident deaths in Ohio Alzheimer's disease researchers Case Western Reserve University faculty English neuroscientists Alumni of the University of Nottingham People from Geauga County, Ohio Pedestrian road incident deaths Alumni of Hatfield College, Durham