Daniel Perl M.D.

Education

B.A. Columbia College, New York
M.D. State University of New York, Downstate Medical Center
Internship in Pathology, Yale-New Haven Hospital
Resident in Pathology, Yale-New Haven Hospital
Post-Doctoral Fellow in Neuropathology, Department of Pathology, Yale University School of Medicine
American Board of Pathology, Board Certified - Anatomic Pathology, Neuropathology

Biography

Dr. Daniel P. Perl was born and raised in New York City and received his BA and MD degrees from Columbia University and the State University of New York. He then took postgraduate training in anatomic pathology and neuropathology at the Yale University School of Medicine/Yale-New Haven Hospital. Following this, he served for two years as a pathologist in the US Public Health Service, stationed at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. In subsequent years he served on the faculty of the Brown University Medical School and then the University of Vermont, College of Medicine. In 1986, Dr. Perl joined the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, where for 24 years he served as Director of the Neuropathology Division and was Professor of Pathology, Psychiatry and Neurosciences.
Dr. Perl has authored over 380 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters and is co-author, with Oxford University Professor Margaret Esiri of the 3rd edition of Oppenheimer’s Diagnostic Neuropathology, a leading textbook in his field. Many of his publications are considered to be seminal in their impact on the field. He is highly regarded for his work on various aspects of the neuropathology of age-related neurodegenerative disorders, especially the role of environmental factors in their induction. He is the world’s leading authority on the pathology of the mysterious complex of neurodegenerative disorders occurring among the native population living on Guam. In addition, he played an important role in the initial characterization of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) among former NFL football players and was an active contributor to the development of the two successive NIH-supported neuropathology consensus diagnostic criteria for the disease.
More recently, he has been a leader in the study of the nature of the invisible wound among military personnel and, in particular, the effects of blast overpressure exposure on the human brain. In 2016, Dr. Perl and his team described interface astroglial scarring (Shively, SB, et al.. Characterisation of interface astroglial scarring in the human brain after blast exposure: a post-mortem case series. Lancet Neurol. 15: 944-953, 2016.), a newly defined disorder which, for the first time, demonstrated that exposure to the blast wave can result in a reproducible, definable pattern of damage to the human brain. His research team has also reported that chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) does not represent a common disorder among deployed Service Members and is not associated with blast exposure (Priemer DS, Iacono D, Rhodes CH, Olsen CH, Perl DP. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy in the brains of military personnel. N Engl J Med. 386:2169-2177. 2022). Dr. Perl has received numerous awards for his contributions to research and medical education. In 2021, recognizing a career of contributions to his field, Dr. Perl received the Meritorious Achievement Award from the American Association of Neuropathologists, the highest honor the Association bestows.

Career Highlights: Positions, Projects, Deployements, Awards and Additional Publications

Associate Professor of Pathology, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT, 1976-1983.

Professor of Pathology, University of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT, 1983-1986.

Attending Neuropathologist, Medical Center Hospital of Vermont, Burlington, VT, 1976-1986

Professor of Pathology, Psychiatry and Neurosciences, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY, 1986-2010

Director of Neuropathology Division, Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, NY, 1986-2010

Professor of Pathology (Neuropathology), Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, 2010 to date

Director DoD/USU Brain Tissue Repository, 2012 to date

Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA), Lambda Chapter, Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Alumni Achievement Medallion for Distinguished Service to American Medicine and Humanity, SUNY Downstate Alumni Association

Meritorius Achievement Award, American Association of Neuropathologists, 2021

Representative Bibliography

Esiri, M.M. and Perl, D.P. Oppenheimer’s Diagnostic Neuropathology, A Practical Manual, 3rd Edition. Hodder Arnold Press, London, 2006, pp. 1-566.

Shively, SB, Edgerton, SL, Iacono, D, Purohit, DP, Qu, BX, Haroutunian, V, Davis, KL, Diaz-Arrastia, R, Perl, DP. Localized cortical chronic traumatic encephalopathy pathology after single, severe axonal injury in human brain. Acta Neuropathol. 133: 353-366, 2017.

Shively, SB, Perl, DP Traumatic brain injury, shell shock and post-traumatic stress disorder in the military - past, present and future. J. Head Trauma Rehabil. 27: 234-239, 2012.

McKee, AC, Cairns, NJ, Dickson, DW, Folkerth, RD, Keene, CD, Litvan, I, Perl, DP, Stein, TD, Vonsattel, JP, Stewart, W, et al. The first NINDS/NIBIB consensus meeting to define neuropathological criteria for the diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy. ACTA Neuropathol. 131: 75-86, 2016

Shively, SB, Horkayne-Szakaly, I, Jones, RV, Kelly, JP, Armstrong, RC, Perl, DP. Characterisation of interface astroglial scarring in the human brain after blast exposure: a post-mortem case series. Lancet Neurol. 15: 944-953, 2016.

Shively, SB, Perl, DP. Viewing the invisible wound: novel lesions identified in postmortem brains of U.S. service members with military blast exposure. Mil. Med. 182: 1461-1463, 2017.

Lee MH, Perl DP, Nair G, Li W, Maric D, Murray H, et al. Microvascular Injury in the Brains of Patients with Covid-19. N Engl J Med. 384(5):481-483, 2021.

Priemer DS, Iacono D, Rhodes CH, Olsen CH, Perl DP. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy in the Brains of Military Personnel. N Engl J Med. 386(23):2169-77, 2022.

Guam ALS-PDC is a distinct double-prion disorder featuring both tau and Aβ prions. Condello C, Ayers JI, Dalgard CL, Garcia Garcia MM, Rivera BM, Seeley WW, Perl DP, Prusiner SB. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2023 Mar 28;120(13):e2220984120. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2220984120. Epub 2023 Mar 23. PMID: 36952379

Benjamini, D, Priemer, DS, Perl, DP, Brody, DL, & Basser, PJ. Mapping astrogliosis in the individual human brain using multidimensional MRI. Brain, 146(3), 1212-1226, 2023.