David L. Brody, MD, PhD

David L. Brody, MD, PhD, assistant professor of neurology, is honored for his excellent achievements in understanding and treating traumatic brain injury.

Brody, who joined the Washington University faculty in 2004 as an instructor, has already developed an international reputation in traumatic brain injury research and is recognized as one of the best physician scientists in this field of study.

As a research fellow in the lab of Department Head David M. Holtzman, MD, and later as a junior faculty member, Brody developed and validated advanced imaging methods to detect injury in the brain’s white matter. He then investigated the role that secondary effects of physical injury — including swelling, inflammation and deposition of amyloid — play in clinical deficits. He applied this knowledge in clinical studies; in 2007, he and Italian collaborators showed for the first time that amyloid measured directly from brain interstitial fluid in hospitalized brain injury patients predicts neurological function. In June, he reported the major finding that an advanced magnetic resonance imaging method called diffusion tensor imaging can reveal blast-related brain damage not revealed by other imaging methods. The findings have implications for better diagnosis and treatment of traumatic brain injury in civilian and military populations.

His achievements have been recognized with several awards, including a Career Development Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders, a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences, two large Department of Defense awards and a National Institutes of Health (NIH) R01 award. Recently, he has served as a consultant to the medical advisor of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, traveling to Afghanistan in that role.

Brody received his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University in 1992 and his medical and doctoral degrees from The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 2000. He rounded out his medical training with an internship and neurology residency at Washington University.