Gal Bitan, Ph.D.

Gal Bitan

Professor-in-Residence, Neurology, University of California Los Angeles

310-206 2082

635 Charles E Young Drive South
Los Angeles, CA 90095
UNITED STATES

UC Profile
ORCID profile
http://bitanlab.neurology.ucla.edu/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/gal.bitan.1/bibliography/41140873/public/

Gal Bitan got his PhD in organic chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. During his postdoc at Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, Dr. Bitan worked on pathologic self-assembly of amyloid ß-protein (Aß) and made fundamental contributions to the study of early events in the pathologic cascades that cause Alzheimer's disease, including the discovery of one of the earliest oligomers in the assembly cascade, the paranucleus. In 2004, Dr. Bitan joined UCLA where he is currently a Professor of Neurology. His research program combines basic and translational research focused on neurodegenerative proteinopathies, including Alzheimer's disease, other tauopathies, Parkinson's disease, and atypical parkinsonian disorders. The Bitan group has discovered small molecules called "molecular tweezers" that are broad-spectrum inhibitors of abnormal protein oligomerization and aggregation. A lead compound, CLR01, was shown to ameliorate disease phenotype and reduce toxic protein aggregates in pre-clinical models of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple system atrophy, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, transthyretin amyloidosis, and desmin-related cardiomyopathy. In a different line of research, the group has been developing biomarkers in CNS-originating extracellular vesicles and has shown that such biomarkers can distinguish between Parkinson's disease and multiple system atrophy with high sensitivity and specificity using a simple blood test. The Bitan group is also the first to discover exophers in mammalian neurons. Exophers are new cellular compartments/extracellular vesicles previously described in C. elegans, which are thought to participate in non-cell-autonomous clearance of dysfunctional organelles and protein aggregates, in addition to other, currently unknown roles in neurophysiology.

Biography

Gal Bitan got his PhD in organic chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Dr. Bitan’s graduate work on unnatural amino acids and non-conventional peptide cyclization methodologies led him to postdoctoral studies on the structural biology of ligand-receptor systems including integrins and G protein-coupled receptors at Clark University, Worcester, MA and Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. Dr. Bitan then moved on to tackle the problem of protein misfolding and aggregation, which is involved in over 30 devastating diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, prion diseases (e.g., Mad Cow disease), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gherig’s disease), and type II diabetes. Working at Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, Dr. Bitan has made fundamental contributions to the study of early events in the pathologic cascades that cause Alzheimer’s disease. In Alzheimer’s disease, the amyloid ß-protein (Aß) self-associates to form a variety of oligomeric and polymeric structures with potent neurotoxic activities. In particular, Aß oligomers have been implicated as the probable cause of Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Bitan introduced the use of novel photochemical protein cross-linking techniques for investigation of Aß assembly and discovered one of the earliest oligomers in the assembly cascade, the paranucleus. In 2004, Dr. Bitan joined UCLA where he is currently a Professor of Neurology. His research program is focused on translational science geared at developing novel, mechanism-based diagnostic and therapeutic tools for neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease and other tauopathies, Parkinson’s disease, multiple system atrophy, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Awards and Honors

  • Turken Award for Alzheimer’s Disease Research, UCLA, 2005.
  • Invited Plenary Lecture Asilomar Conference on Neurodegenerative Diseases, American Society for Mass Spectrometry, 2021.
  • Invited Keynote Speaker of Annual Symposium, The MSA Coalition, 2021.
  • Inaugural Undergraduate Faculty Mentor Award, UCLA, 2018.

Publications