Giulio Taglialatela, PhD
June 2020
Giulio Taglialatela earned his MS in biological sciences in 1984 and his PhD in pharmacology in 1988, both at the University of Rome La Sapienza in Italy. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at UTMB in 1988 and completed his training in 1990. From 1990 to 1993, Dr. Taglialatela served as director of the Molecular and Cell Biology in the Institute for Research on Aging at the Sigma Tau Pharmaceuticals in Pomezia (Rome) Italy. He returned to UTMB in 1993 as an assistant professor and became a tenured professor in the Department of Neuroscience & Cell Biology in 2011. Dr. Taglialatela is currently the vice chair for research for the Department of Neurology and the director of the UTMB Mitchell Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases.
Dr. Taglialatela has maintained continuous funding for the past 27 years. His research focuses on the molecular neurobiology of Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative disorders attracting support from the NIH, the State of Texas and multiple foundations. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and delivered invited talks nationally and internationally. Dr. Taglialatela has served on national and international grant review panels.
Dr. Taglialatela is also actively involved in teaching to medical and graduate school students. He is the director of the UTMB NIH funded Neuroscience Summer Undergraduate Research Program. Significantly, his largest impact may be in the many graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, medical students and junior faculty he has mentored. He has mentored four postdoctoral fellows, was the mentor for 16 graduate students, 6 undergraduate students and 3 high school students. He has also been a supervisory committee member for 19 other graduate students. He has been a leader in the innovative joint PhD program with the University of Palermo that provides opportunities for Palermo and US students. He has also hosted numerous medical and rotation students in his laboratory. His students have gone on to prestigious post-doctoral appointments and a variety of productive careers. He has been the President of the Society for Neuroscience (SfN) UTMB chapter for more than 20 years. In this role he has empowered graduate students as leaders of the chapter where they have arguably the most extensive educational; outreach activities of any student group at UTMB. Under his leadership, the SfN received a national award for excellence.
Affectionately known as Dr. T to students, he has garnered a host of student-centered awards. In 2013, Dr. Taglialatela received the highest awards conferred to a UTMB graduate faculty, the GSBS Distinguished Faculty Service Award and the Graduate Student Organization Distinguished Teaching Award. He has also received the Neuroscience Teaching Excellence Award more than once, the Department of Neurology professionalism award, and was honored as the Mace Bearer at the Graduate School commencement exercises. He deeply cares about the students he mentors, gives them the research and professional skills to be successful and helps ensure that they launch successful careers. Please join the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in celebrating Dr. Taglialatela as the inaugural GSBS – Focus on Mentoring designee.