Rita Sattler, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Translational Neuroscience at Barrow Neurological Institute. Sattler received her master’s and doctoratal degrees in neurophysiology from the University of Toronto in Canada. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University Medical School in Baltimore, Maryland. Sattler stayed at Johns Hopkins University and attained the academic rank of assistant professor of neurology, with a secondary appointment in the Brain Science Institute at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Sattler is a member of the American Society for Neuroscience and the American Society for Neurochemistry. She is the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including the Governor’s Gold Medal for the highest academic achievement in graduate studies at the University of Toronto, a Human Frontier Science Program Long-term Fellowship, and a Howard Hughes Postdoctoral Fellowship. She currently serves as grant reviewer for several national and international disease foundations as well as the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Sattler’s research focuses on studies of synaptic biology in health and disease. She employs human patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells to elucidate the mechanisms of neuronal cell death in numerous neurodegenerative disorders, including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia.

Sattler is principal investigator and co-investigator of numerous active grants from the NIH/National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes as well as several disease foundations, including the ALS Association, the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research.