Jeffery M. Vance, M.D., Ph.D. is a Professor in the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Department Human Genetics (founding Chairman, 2008-2012) and a Professor of Neurology at the University of Miami, Miller School of Medicine. He is boarded by both the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and the American College of Medical Genetics and is an elected member of the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida (ASEMFL). His research has focused on the application of clinical, molecular, and mathematical genetic techniques to identify genes leading to human disease. He has collaborated on research in many different clinical specialties, but primary focus is on neurodegenerative disorders (Parkinson and Alzheimer disease). His early career research identified many of the major genes contributing to the most common hereditary neuropathy, Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. He moved to research on the genetics of Parkinson Disease with a multiyear collaboration with Glaxo-Wellcome in Parkinson families and extended this research as the Principal Investigator leading the Duke/Miami Morris K Udall Parkinson’s Disease Research Center of Excellence. This center, funded to study the genetics of Parkinson Disease by NIH for 17 years, contributed over 64 papers to the Parkinson disease field including identifying several risk loci, studies on pesticide interactions with genetic interaction and the effects of smoking and diet on Parkinson disease. His current laboratory research focuses on Alzheimer disease, where he is a recipient of a prestigious Zenith Award from the Alzheimer's Association for his Alzheimer research. He has led research on several important studies including demonstrating that the reason for lower risk for AD in African ancestry carriers of APOE4 is due to the lower expression of the gene in African ancestry carriers compared to European APOE4 carriers, using single nuclei studies in brains. He followed up this demonstrating that that the regulatory architecture for Europeans contributes to this difference in expression. Currently, he is co-chair of the National Institutes of Aging Working group on APOE4, and lead author on therapeutic recommendations of this group for APOE4. In addition, his laboratory is identifying the differences in regulatory architecture of the African and Amerindian genomes, using differentiated cells from ancestry specific inducible pluripotent stem cells, as well as brain samples. Implementing a wide range of epigenetic techniques, this will allow identification of the genetic loci identified in Alzheimer disease GWAS studies that are specific for African Americans and Hispanic/Latino individuals. He is also MPI of two large NIH funded studies to collect African, African American and Hispanic/Latino AD patients and controls for the Alzheimer Disease Sequencing project. Clinically, he serves as one of the clinicians that reviews the clinical data for the over patients collected in these studies, which will eventually total over 13,000 individuals. He is also involved in education, as one of the founders of the Genomic Medicine master’s degree program for medical students at the Miller School of Medicine and the Principal investigator for the JJ Vance summer internship program at the HIHG. This program has helped over 175 high school students, primarily from underserved schools, to experience research alongside active funded scientists.