Jonathan D. Cherry, PhD

Assistant Professor, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Biography

Background
Dr. Cherry is an Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. He completed his undergraduate studies with a BS in biology at Ursinus College in 2008. He earned his doctoral degree in Pathology from the University of Rochester in 2015. Dr. Cherry joined the McKee laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher the same year. He was appointed as an assistant professor at Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine in 2019. Dr. Cherry also holds a research health scientist position within the VA Boston Healthcare System. His laboratory space is located at the Jamaica Plain VA hospital where he performs his research and helps support the VA-BU-CLF brain bank.

Research Interests
Dr. Cherry’s research interests focus on understanding how neuroinflammation after repetitive traumatic brain injury contributes to CTE pathogenesis. Specifically, Dr. Cherry seeks to identify what role microglia and inflammatory cytokines play in the early onset of hyperphosphorylated tau accumulation and spread.
Dr. Cherry’s research also extend to histology analysis. He is the director of the digital pathology hub present within the BU CTE center. This research entails exploring novel ways to analyze human postmortem tissue for neuropathologic targets and better characterize pathology across a spectrum of neurodegenerative disease including Alzheimer’s disease, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, frontotemporal lobar degeneration, motor neuron diseases, and others.

Publications

  • Published 12/1/2025

    Stein T, Breen K, Aytan N, Hawkins S, Nicks R, Alvarez V, Mez J, Blusztajn J, Cherry J, McKee A, Lin H. Duration of contact sports play associated with aberrant DNA methylation in human frontal cortex. Res Sq. 2025 Dec 01. PMID: 41377989.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 10/8/2025

    Li S, Malamut M, McKee A, Cherry JD, Tian L. Age-informed, attention-based weakly supervised learning for neuropathological image assessment. Brain Inform. 2025 Oct 08; 12(1):27. PMID: 41060466.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 10/1/2025

    Kanner H, Tilton C, Alvarez VE, Stein TD, McKee AC, Cherry JD. Comparison of multiple quantitative strategies for neuropathologic image analyses. J Neuropathol Exp Neurol. 2025 Oct 01; 84(10):928-940. PMID: 40814960.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 9/17/2025

    Butler MLMD, Pervaiz N, Breen K, Calderazzo S, Ypsilantis P, Wang Y, Breda JC, Mazzilli S, Nicks R, Spurlock E, Hefti MM, Fiock KL, Huber BR, Alvarez VE, Stein TD, Campbell JD, McKee AC, Cherry JD. Repeated head trauma causes neuron loss and inflammation in young athletes. Nature. 2025 Nov; 647(8088):228-237. PMID: 40963024.

    Read at: PubMed

  • Published 7/14/2025

    Bindra GS, Asad S, Shanaa J, Lui F, Budson AE, Turk KW, Cherry JD. Neuroinflammatory mechanisms may help identify candidate biomarkers in chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Free Neuropathol. 2025; 6:15. PMID: 40666430.

    Read at: PubMed

View All 63 Publications:   View Full Profile in BUMC

Other Positions

  • Assistant Professor, Neurology
    Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Websites

Education

  • University of Rochester, PhD
  • Ursinus College, BS

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