Ian Murray, PhD

Education and Training

• University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Canada, B.Sc. Hons Co-op, 1993
• McGill University, Montreal, Canada, PhD- Physiology, 1999
• University of Pennsylvania, Postdoctoral and additional training, 1999-2007
• University of Texas A&M, Neuroscience and Experimental Therapeutics, 2007-2013
• St George’s University, Grenada, Caribbean, 2014-2019

Research Interests

• Dr. Murray has been engaged in lipid and neurodegenerative disease research for the past 30 years both in academic and industrial settings. He carried out seminal studies in the field of protein folding involved in obesity, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's diseases. He was the first to define the role of Acylating Stimulating Protein in a knockout mouse model (Endocrin 2000, JBC 2000, JLR 1999). He was also the first in the field to identify the regions of alpha-synuclein involved in misfolding, nitrated (Science 2000, JBC 2001, Biochem 2003) and the effect of beta-synuclein on toxicity in Parkinson's (Hum Mol Gen 2006), and the role of lipid oxidation in amyloid-beta in Alzheimer's. His current research focuses on using meta-analysis to identify mechanisms underlying Alzheimer's disease. Since 2014, he has also focused on medical education, applying educational theories to teaching in the flipped classroom, facilitating team-based learning, and mentoring (Adv Phys Ed 2019, 2021). Dr. Murray actively includes and mentors students in research, publishing and conference participation such as AAIC, and IAMSE. Indeed, as director of the Medical Student Research Institute for 4 years he mentored over 300 medical students in research, directly supervising ~80 students. Some of the current projects include measuring attention during learning, assessing expert to novice learning, and experiential learning (using Arduino spirometers, pulse oximeters, and mechanical ventilators).