Dr.
Kári Stefánsson, is an Icelandic neurologist, who
is currently the President, Chairman, CEO and co-founder of
deCODE
Genetics
.
He was
born in 1949 in Iceland
Education and Early Career
He received his
M.D. in 1976 and
his
Dr med. In 1986 from the University of
Iceland
. He went to the University of
Chicago
and trained in neurology,
neuropathology,and neurosciences and served on the faculty there
for 10 years, from 1983 until 1993. Thereafter, he was a
professor of neurology, neuropathology and neuroscience at Harvard
University
, from 1993 until 1997. Conconcurrently at
that time, he was director of neuropathology at Boston's
Beth Israel Hospital, from 1993-1996.
While in
Boston
, he and his colleague Jeffrey Gulcher decided to return to Iceland
to perform genetic studies to determine multiple sclerosis risk.
At DeCode Genetics
Kári Stefánsson founded DeCode Genetics in 1996 in the midst of
concerns about privacy related to a large centralized healthcare
database and the commercial use of health information and
genetics. As of 2003, nearly 100,000 of 285,000
Icelandic citizens have consented and given blood to DeCode
Genetics for analysis . The process has linked the country’s
genetics profiles with
medical
records and
genealogy information.
This has led to the discovery of the
neuregulin-1 gene and its association with
schizophrenia, a condition that Kari
Stefansson’s brother has. In 2007, his compensation was $662,296. .
He was on the
Time 100 list in 2007.
References
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