Maria Grazia Spillantini

Maria Grazia Spillantini
Born	Arezzo, Italy
Residence	Cambridge, UK
Nationality	Italian
Institutions	University of Florence, Italy INSERM, Paris, France Medical Research Council, Cambridge, UK University of Cambridge, UK
Notable awards	Potamkin Prize of the American Academy of Neurology (2000)
Spouse	Michel Goedert

Maria Grazia Spillantini FMedSci FRS, is Professor of Molecular Neurology in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge. She was elected as a fellow of The Royal Society in 2013. She is most noted for identifying the protein alpha-synuclein as the major component of Lewy bodies, the characteristic protein deposit found in the brain in Parkinson's disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. She has also identified mutations in the MAPT gene as a heritable cause for frontotemporal dementia.

Spillantini completed a laurea in biological sciences at the University of Florence, graduating summa cum laude. She remained at the University of Florence, moving to the Department of Clinical Pharmacology to conduct research. After research posts at INSERM Unité de Neurobiologie in Paris, and the Molecular Neurobiology Unit of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge UK, she began PhD studies at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology. Spillantini was affiliated with Peterhouse college during this time. She was awarded a PhD in molecular biology in 1987.