Dr. Ronald P. Hart, associate director and member of the W.M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience and a professor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is recognized as a leading expert in microarray technologies in models of trauma to the central nervous system. Dr. Hart obtained a bachelor of science degree from The University of Connecticut and a doctorate from the University of Michigan Medical School. Following postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University, he joined the Rutgers (Newark) faculty in 1985.

In 2000, Dr. Hart was recruited to establish functional genomics technologies at the W. M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience where he also became a professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience. Beginning with a pilot project funded by the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, Dr. Hart established the Neuroscience Gene Expression Laboratory (NGEL) within the W. M. Keck Center. Dr. Hart has trained over 75 national and international scientists in the use of microarrays and actively works in partnership with dozens of researchers throughout the world.

Dr. Hart’s specialty is molecular biology and the expression and processing of mRNA in cells. In 1987, with support from a National Institute of Mental Health Research Career Development Award, he expanded his training first into neuroscience and then neuroimmunology. Dr. Hart was one of the first to identify specific mechanisms linking inflammation in the nervous system to the activation of growth and differentiation factors. His laboratory cloned many of the first inflammatory cytokines from the rat nervous system and has made these available to researchers worldwide.

In 2001, Dr. Hart’s group published the first comprehensive gene expression analysis of acute spinal cord injury. In 2005, Dr. Hart was awarded one of the first New Jersey Stem Cell Research Grants. He serves on the board of scientific advisors for the SCIGenes database at the University of Kentucky and is the author of over 50 publications.

EOHSI
170 Frelinghuysen Road
Piscataway, NJ 08854
Room# D251
Phone (Office): (732) 445-1783
FAX: (732) 445-2063
Email: rhart@rci.rutgers.edu