Malú Gámez Tansey, PhD
Director of the Center for Translational Research in Neuro-degenerative Disease (CTRND) / Norman and Susan Fixel Chair in Neuroscience and Neurology, University of Florida

Malú Gámez Tansey’s lab focuses on the role of inflammation and immune system responses in brain health, and in the development of neurodegenerative diseases, with a long-term goal of developing better therapies to prevent and/or delay these diseases. She is co-inventor of novel second-generation TNF inhibitors which have now advanced to clinical trials in Alzheimer’s disease and COVID19 cytokine storm, as well as Parkinson’s disease in 2023.

Dr. Tansey obtained her BS/MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University, and her PhD in Physiology from The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. In 2001, she joined Xencor, Inc. where she co-invented the first generation of the TNF inhibitors now in the clinic. After becoming a tenured Associate Professor of Physiology at UT Southwestern in 2008, Dr. Tansey was recruited to Emory University. While at Emory, she catalyzed multiple initiatives to expand and coalesce neuroinflammation efforts across the medical school and helped establish the Center for Neurodysfunction and Inflammation (CNI) at Emory in 2018. In 2019, she was recruited to the University of Florida to be Director of the Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Disease (CTRND) and the first endowed Norman and Susan Fixel Chair in Neuroscience and Neurology at the University of Florida.

As a Hispanic American, Malú has served as a role model to numerous undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate trainees, many of them women from underrepresented minority groups. She served as codirector of Emory’s Initiative for Maximizing Student Development (IMSD). Their mission is to strengthen institutional efforts to enhance recruitment and retention of diverse student and faculty bodies at Emory, by providing research training and mentoring opportunities to both. Dr. Tansey is a fierce advocate for women and other under-represented groups in STEM and has earned several mentoring awards from students and faculty for her efforts in this area.

In her spare time, Malú enjoys talking to patient and research-advocacy groups, and cooking, sailing, and scuba-diving.