SPEAKERS

COURSE DIRECTOR

Howard Fillit, MD - Dr. Fillit, a geriatrician and neuroscientist, is the founding Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Aging, Inc. as well as its affiliated public charity the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, both of which are dedicated to funding drug discovery for Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Fillit was formally the Corporate Medical Director for Medicare at NYLCare Health Plans (now a division of Aetna, Inc.), where he was responsible for over 125,000 Medicare members in 8 regional markets. He has also had a distinguished academic career at The Rockefeller University and The Mount Sinai Medical Center (NY), where he is currently a clinical professor of geriatrics and medicine and a professor of neurobiology. Dr. Fillit has received many awards and honors, including the Rita Hayworth Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Alzheimer's Association. He is a fellow of the American Geriatrics Society, the American College of Physicians, the Gerontological Society of America, and the New York Academy of Medicine. Dr. Fillit is the author or co-author of more than 250 publications, including the leading international Textbook of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology. He served as a consultant to a variety of individuals, managed care organizations, health care systems, and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

INVITED SPEAKERS

Asa Abeliovich, PhD (confirmed) - Dr. Asa Abeliovich is an Assistant Professor of Pathology at Columbia University.  He is also a member of the Center for Neurobiology, the Department of Neurology, and Behavior and the Taub Institute for Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain.  Dr. Abeliovich joined the Columbia faculty in 2000.  Dr. Abeliovich’s interests lie in aspects of dopamine neuron development, function, and survival.  A particular focus is on the mechanism by which genetic mutations that have been linked to familial forms of Parkinsonism lead to dopamine neuron loss.  With respect to development, Dr. Abeliovich uses stem cells, including embryonic stem cells, as simple in vitro clonal cell culture models to dissect the molecular regulation of mammalian dopamine neuron maturation.  ES cells can mature in vitro through roughly the same series of developmental events as the more complex in vivo process. Dr. Abeliovich graduated from MIT with bachelor’s degrees in Life Sciences and Humanities, and was then awarded a Medical Scholar Training Program Fellowship at Harvard Medical School.  He undertook my thesis research in the laboratory of Dr. Susumu Tonegawa, where he studied molecular mechanisms of learning.  He graduated from Harvard/MIT with MD and PhD degrees in 1996 and subsequently completed clinical training in Neurology at UCSF.  At Genentech, Inc. (1996-2000), in South San Francisco, he initiated research on mechanisms of dopamine neuron development and survival with Dr. Arnon Rosenthal.  Dr. Abeliovich also sees patients in the Memory Disorders Clinic within the Department of Neurology.  He was awarded the Lamport award for excellence in basic science research at Columbia University in 2005.

James Bamburg, PhD (confirmed) - Dr. James Bamburg is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and Director of the Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Neuroscience Program at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO.

Dr. Bamburg discovered the ADF/cofilin family of proteins while on sabbatical leave at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK in 1979. He has studied the biochemical activity and biological function and regulation of these proteins ever since. These proteins bind actin and form intracellular bundles (rods) in neurons under stress. Rods may be at the heart of synaptic loss leading to cognitive dysfunction in Alzheimer's disease.

Gabriela Chiosis, PhD (confirmed) - Dr. Gabriela Chiosis is a Principal Investigator in the Program in Molecular Pharmacology and Chemistry at Sloan-Kettering Institute, and an Assistant Attending in the Department of Medicine of Memorial Hospital for Cancer & Allied Diseases, New York. She is also a faculty in several biomedical graduate programs such as the Program in Pharmacology, Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Cornell University, the Tri-Institutional Training Program in Chemical Biology, Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Center, Cornell University and The Rockefeller University and the Cancer Biology Program of the Gerstner Sloan-Kettering Graduate School. She received her graduate training at Columbia University in New York and has joined Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 1998. The Chiosis Laboratory investigates the significance of modulating molecular chaperones in disease treatment. In this respect, it has developed pharmacological tools instrumental in defining the roles of Hsp90 in regulating the stability and function of aberrant protein driving the neurodegenerative phenotype in tauopathies. Hsp90 inhibitors discovered by the lab are the platform for the development of purine-scaffold Hsp90 inhibitor currently in Phase I evaluation in patients with advanced cancers.

Jerry Colca, PhD (confirmed) - Dr. Jerry Colca has more than 30 years’ experience in diabetes research. He has a PhD in biochemistry and physiology from the University of Houston, where he studied the regulation of secretion of pancreatic hormones. In his postdoctoral work at Washington University, working with Michael McDaniel and colleagues he studied the biochemistry of isolated pancreatic islets and stimulus-secretion coupling in the control of metabolism. In 1984 he joined the Upjohn Company, where he led a research team that developed pioglitazone hydrochloride (Actos®). He remained a leader in diabetes discovery through several corporate mergers, retiring from Pfizer in 2005. Dr. Colca has published extensively on the mechanism of action of the insulin-sensitizing thiazolidinediones. In January 2006, he co-founded Metabolic Solutions Development Company with Dr. Rolf Kletzien to develop novel therapeutics based on unique mitochondrial actions of insulin sensitizing agents.

Karen Duff, PhD (confirmed) -  Dr. Duff received her Ph.D from Sydney Brenner’s dept at the University of Cambridge (UK) in 1991. She has held positions at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Mayo Clinic Jacksonville, and the Nathan Kline Institute (NYU) in New York. In 2006 she moved to the Taub Institute at Columbia University and is a tenured Professor in the Pathology Department, with a joint position at the NYS Psychiatric Institute.  The main focus of Dr. Duff’s work is to examine mechanisms involved in the development of neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer’s, Tauopathies etc) and to test therapeutic approaches that may attenuate disease progression. Over the last 20 years, Dr. Duff has used genetic engineering technology to create several mouse models for AD that develop either plaques or tangles. The mice that form amyloid plaques have been especially well used to examine different aspects of AD, from the development of methods for MRI based diagnosis of amyloidosis, to understanding mechanisms by which the brain degenerates. In addition, the mouse models have been used to study how possible therapeutic strategies may help in the treatment, or prevention of AD. Currently, her main interests are in exploring how tangles form in the brain and therapeutic approaches to reduce their impact, and how AD is initiated in Late Onset AD. Dr. Duff has won several prizes for her work, including the Potamkin Prize In 2006. Her CV includes over 100 peer reviewed research articles and she is a regular speaker at scientific meetings around the world. Her work is mainly funded by the NIH and foundations.

Rebecca M. Evans, MD (confirmed) - Rebecca Evans, MD, MSc is a neurologist and Associate Director of Clinical Neuroscience at Pfizer Global Research and Development. In her current position at Pfizer, she in involved in developing and managing studies in Alzheimer’s Disease and stroke. She obtained her MD from the University of Iowa, completed neurology residency training at the University of Minnesota, and completed fellowships in EMG and neuromuscular disease at the University of Kansan, and dementia at Indiana University. Prior to moving to the pharmaceutical industry, she was on the faculty at Indiana University and was an investigator in clinical trials for AD, and engaged in epidemiology and genetics research in AD.  

Michela Gallagher, PhD (confirmed) - Dr. Michela Gallagher received her B.A. from Colgate University in 1969 and Ph.D. from The University of Vermont in 1977. She rose through the faculty ranks at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was the Kenan Professor of Psychology prior to joining Johns Hopkins University in 1997.  She has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers, has been the recipient of a Senior Research Scientist Award from NIMH (1990-1999), a Freedom to Discover Award from the Bristol-Myers Foundation (2003-2008), and Senior Scientist Award from the Ellison Medical Foundation (2008-2012). She is a fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She chaired the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins from 2000-2007.  Dr. Gallagher now serves as the Director of the Neurogenetics and Behavior Center at Johns Hopkins University and heads a multi-institutional research program funded by the National Institute on Aging. Her scientific work established a model for neurocognitive aging that shifted research from studies of neurodegeneration as a cause of memory loss to uncovering functional mechanisms. She currently serves part-time as the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Johns Hopkins.

Graham Jones, PhD (confirmed) - Graham Jones is Professor and Chair of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Trained as an organic chemist (in the laboratories of 1990 Nobelist E.J. Corey) his research focuses on the development of new methodology for the chemical synthesis of medicinal candidates and image contrast agents. This includes antitumor antibiotics, antiviral agents and more recently, CNS agents for Huntingtons' disease, Alzheimers disease and Parkinsons disease. In 2008, Jones established a partnership with the Northeastern Center for Translational Neuroimaging involving synthesis of new probes for SPECT and PET imaging of CNS disorders. His program has generated over 100 publications in the fields of organic and medicinal chemistry, and he has been the recipient of numerous research awards including the DSc in 2006 for contributions to organic and medicinal chemistry. In addition to his role in the department, Jones also serves as Associate Director of The Barnett Institute of Chemical and Biological Analysis where he has been instrumental in developing new research and education programs for the analysis of biomolecules.

Jeff Kuret, PhD (confirmed) - Dr. Kuret is a Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry at The Ohio State University.  He completed his BS degree in biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, and conducted graduate work with Professor Howard Schulman at Stanford University.  After earning his PhD degree in Pharmacology, he joined the laboratory of Sir Philip Cohen in the Medical Sciences Institute, Dundee, Scotland as a postdoctoral fellow, and served on the faculties of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and Northwestern University.  He currently serves on the Synapse Cytoskeleton and Trafficking (SYN) and Drug Discovery (MNPS-C) review panels at the NIH Center for Scientific Review.  Dr. Kuret’s laboratory focuses primarily on tau aggregation and neurofibrillary lesion formation in Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal lobar degeneration.

Taw Wan Kim, PhD (confirmed) - Dr. Tae-Wan Kim is currently Associate Professor in the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University Medical Center (New York, NY). He also holds appointments in the University's Department of Pathology and Cell Biology. Dr. Kim received his B.S. in Biotechnology at Yonsei University (Seoul, Korea), and his Ph.D. in Neurobiology from Rutgers University (Piscataway, NJ) in 1994, while working in the laboratory of the late Dr. Ira B. Black. In 1994, he undertook a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Rudolph E. Tanzi at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He was subsequently appointed Instructor and later Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kim has received a number of awards, including the Ruth Salta Junior Investigator Achievement Award from the American Health Assistance Foundation (2004), the New Scholar Award in Aging from the Ellison Medical Foundation (2002); and the Partners Investigator Nesson Award from the Partners HealthCare System, Inc. (1998). Dr. Kim’s lab currently focuses on using chemical and functional genetic approaches to understand the biogenesis and synaptic action of β-amyloid peptide and neuronal dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease.

Virginia M.-Y. Lee, PhD, MBA (confirmed) - Dr. Virginia M.-Y. Lee is the John H. Ware 3^rd Professor in Alzheimer’s Research in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine.  She is the Director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research and Co-director of the Marian S. Ware Alzheimer Drug Discovery Program at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine.  She studied music at the Royal Academy of Music in London (1962-1964), obtained a M.S. in Biochemistry from the University of London (1968), and received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California at San Francisco in 1973.  While a Penn faculty member, Dr. Lee entered the Executive M.B.A. program at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (1982-1984), and obtained her M.B.A. degree from the Wharton School in 1984. Dr. Lee is the recipient of the Metropolitan Life Foundation Award for Medical Research in Alzheimer’s Disease (1991, 1996), the Potamkin Prize for Medical Research in Alzheimer’s Disease (1998) and the Bristol-Myers Squibb Biomedical Research Grant in Neuroscience Research (2003).  In 2004 Dr. Lee was appointed a member of the National Advisory Council on Aging (NIH) and elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies in 2005. Dr. Lee’s research focuses on the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD), frontotemporal dementias (FTDs), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and related neurodegenerative disorders of aging.

Frank Longo, MD, PhD (confirmed) - Dr. Longo received his MD in 1981 and PhD in Neurosciences in 1983 from the University of California, San Diego. Following an internship in medicine at NYU/VA, he trained as a resident in neurology and fellow in neurobiology at University of California, San Francisco. While at UCSF he created the Neurogenetics Clinic which was the first West Coast site in the U.S. to offer DNA testing for families with Huntington’s disease. He also led the creation of a national referral center for deep brain stimulation for Parkinson’s disease and contributed to the development of programs in dementia, epilepsy and other areas. At UCSF he became professor and vice chair of the Department of Neurology and in 2001 he was recruited to become chair of the Department of Neurology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. While at UNC, Dr. Longo launched or expanded programs for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, stroke, epilepsy, sleep disorders, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease. In January 2006, Dr. Longo became chair of the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford where he is focused on building and expanding multidisciplinary programs in neurology and neuroscience. In 2006 he was named a Stanford Fellow. Dr. Longo’s research team focuses on elucidating novel mechanisms that prevent neural degeneration and promote regeneration. He and his colleagues have pioneered the development of small, drug-like, molecules that target neurotrophin receptors to delay onset of or slow progression of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative disorders.

James Malter, MD (confirmed) - James S. Malter MD, is a Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health and Associate Director for Biological Sciences in the Waisman Center for Developmental Disabilities, UW-Madison Graduate School. After receiving his AB from Dartmouth College and MD from Washington University, St. Louis, MO., Dr. Malter completed a Clinical Pathology residency and post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. After a brief stint at Tulane University, Dr. Malter moved to UW-Madison in 1991.

The Malter laboratory currently studies post-transcriptional gene regulation in neurons and immune cells.

Robert Marr, PhD (confirmed) - Dr. Robert A. Marr is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neuroscience with a secondary appointment in the Center of Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine (CSCRM) at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. He received his BS in applied biochemistry from the University of Guelph in 1994. In 2000 Dr. Marr obtained his PhD from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada studying cancer gene therapy. His postdoctoral work at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California was primarily on anti-amyloid therapies of Alzheimer’s disease.  Dr. Marr joined the faculty at Rosalind Franklin in 2005 and was later cross-appointed with the CSCRM in 2009. His lab primarily studies the role of endopeptidases and apoE in Alzheimer’s disease.

James Moe, PhD (confirmed) - Dr. Moe received his Ph.D. degree in molecular biology/molecular biophysics from Wesleyan University studying protein-nucleic acid interactions using high field NMR spectroscopy. He did his postdoctoral work at Vanderbilt University in the Center for Molecular Toxicology where he was jointly appointed in the Chemistry Department in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Biochemistry Department in the Medical School determining the solution structure of DNA-carcinogenic adducts.  He received his MBA degree with a concentration in entrepreneurial studies from Boston University. His research is currently focused on understanding the molecular basis of protein-protein interactions applicable to neurodegenerative diseases more specifically developing novel drug discovery and biomarker approaches targeting tau oligomers for Alzheimer’s disease. He has extensive experience in the biotech/biopharmaceutical industries having worked at various scientific and managerial roles at Gene-Trak/Amoco Technology Ventures/Vysis, bioMerieux, and Mosaic Technologies. Prior to founding OLIGOMERIX he was Director of Product Development at Pyrosequencing and Q-RNA; Inc.

Walter Schmidt, PhD (confirmed) - Walter K. Schmidt is Associate Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Georgia.  He holds degrees from Rice University (BA, 1989) and the University of California - Berkeley (PhD, 1995), and trained as a post-doctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.  His laboratory is focused on protease biology, especially as it relates to the disease states of cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.  The laboratory is specifically investigating the roles of the membrane-bound CaaX proteases and soluble M16A family proteases in the production of isoprenylated proteins.  Examples of isoprenylated proteins are the Ras and Ras-related GTPases, Gg subunits, kinases, nuclear lamins, chaperones, and fungal mating pheromones, among many others.  The research is supported by federal, state, and private agencies.

Diana Shineman, PhD (confirmed) - Diana Shineman, PhD is the Assistant Director for Scientific Affairs at the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation, where she is responsible for developing and managing all aspects of the Foundation’s drug discovery research programs.  Dr. Shineman earned her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania (Penn).   At Penn’s renowned Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research led by Drs. Virginia Lee and John Trojanowski, she studied signal transduction pathways that alter amyloid generation in Alzheimer’s disease.  Dr. Shineman also worked with the Center’s Drug Discovery Group to perform high-throughput screening using cell-based assays.  In addition to her dissertation research, Dr. Shineman was as an Editorial Intern for the Journal of Clinical Investigation and was an active member of the Penn Biotechnology Group.  Dr. Shineman received a BA in Biology with a Nutrition concentration from Cornell University, where she was named a Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Scholar.  She is also a member of the Society for Neuroscience and an author on numerous peer-reviewed publications.

Michael Sierks, PhD (confirmed) - Dr. Michael Sierks' research interests center around engineering proteins as tools for studying neurodegenerative diseases.  One application is to develop a potential diagnosis and treatment for Alzheimer's Disease (AD), one of the most debilitating diseases affecting the elderly population.  Dr. Sierks is using antibodies to target a protein, b-amyloid, which forms plaque deposits around nerve cells in the brain leading to cell atrophy and death.  His laboratory is developing multifunctional antibodies which can both target specific morphologies of b-amyloid and clear it from the brain before it can aggregate into neurotoxic plaques. He is using a similar approach to develop antibodies useful for studying Parkinson’s Disease (PD), another debilitating neurological disease. The protein, a-synuclein, forms aggregates or Lewy Bodies inside affected cells of patients with PD.  Dr. Sierks is also developing antibodies which can intracellularly target various forms of the a-synuclein protein and inhibit formation of the Lewy Bodies aggregates.  These antibodies can be used for in vivo imaging to study the progression of PD, and also as a potential therapeutic. 

Sidney Strickland, PhD (confirmed) - Sidney Strickland is Professor and Dean of the Graduate School at The Rockefeller University in New York City.  He received his BS in chemistry in 1968 from Rhodes College in Memphis.  He obtained his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Michigan in 1972 where he studied the biophysics of enzymology with Vincent Massey.  He then was a postdoctoral fellow for two years at Rockefeller with Edward Reich, where he initiated his work on plasminogen activators.  Dr. Strickland joined the faculty of Rockefeller as an Assistant Professor and then Associate Professor.  In 1983, he accepted a position as Leading Professor at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.  He returned to Rockefeller in 2000 and established the Laboratory of Neurobiology and Genetics.  His lab studies mechanisms of neurodegeneration.

Einar Sigurdsson, PhD (confirmed) - Einar M. Sigurdsson, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Physiology and Neuroscience, and Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine. A native of Iceland, he received a master’s degree in Pharmacy from the University of Iceland, and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Loyola University Chicago Medical Center. He subsequently obtained postdoctoral training at New York University School of Medicine.  His current research focuses on pathogenesis, therapy and diagnosis for age-related protein conformational disorders, in particular Alzheimer’s and prion diseases, as well as exploratory studies in type-2 diabetes. This endeavor has led to over 50 peer reviewed publications and several patents, issued or pending. Dr. Sigurdsson and his collaborators pioneered the use of modified Aβ derivatives as potential immunotherapy for Alzheimer’s disease. Furthermore, they showed for the first time that active and passive immunization delayed the onset of prion disease in mice. They have now been able to prevent clinical symptoms in a large number of infected mice with a novel oral immunization approach. In addition, they published the first study showing that chelators are a potential therapy for prion disease. On the diagnostic front, Dr. Sigurdsson and colleagues published the initial report on detection of amyloid plaques in living brains by magnetic resonance imaging. Lately, he has pioneered the approach to harness the immune system to target pathological tau protein, which will be the focus of his presentation. Dr. Sigurdsson is currently supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and the Alzheimer’s Association (Zenith Fellow), and he is a recipient of the Irma T. Hirschl Career Scientist Award.

Zhiqun Tan, MD, PhD (confirmed) - Zhiqun Tan, MD, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Research in the Department of Neurology at University of California Irvine School of Medicine. He received his M.D. in 1985 from Tongji Medical University, B.Sc. in Biochemistry in 1987 and Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry in 1993 from Wuhan University in China. He then worked as a faculty member at Wuhan University in the field of environmental toxicology. In 1996 he came to the United Stated and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. He joined the faculty at UCI Neurology Department in 2002 and has been studying on neuronal degeneration.  His current research focuses on the pathological changes in the eyes during the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and identifying effective therapeutic molecules from natural sources for pharmacological interventions.  

Lawrence P. Wennogle, PhD (confirmed) - Dr. Wennogle received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado, Boulder working under Drs. Howard Berg and Marvin Caruthers where he studied the structure of red blood cell membranes.  He then completed two post-doctoral positions, one at the University of Colorado and the second at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, France, working under Jean-Pierre Changeux on the structure-function of the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor for Torpedo mamorata. For the past 29 years, Dr. Wennogle has been involved in the research and development in the pharmaceutical industry aimed at discovery of novel pharmaceutical entities for human diseases.  He was a Staff Scientist and Principal Research Fellow at Ciba-Geigy and Novartis for 19 years, where he led drug discovery programs for CNS disorders, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and inflammation. Included in his experiences while at Novartis, he served on an “Expert Committee in Molecular Biology” with world-wide responsibility to evaluate new technologies.  With his broad expertise in drug discovery and the biochemical basis of disease, Dr. Wennogle supervises Intra-Cellular Therapies (ITI) development of small molecule therapeutics for neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders.   ITI currently has a clinical candidate for schizophrenia in phase 2 clinical trials.  Dr. Wennogle is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences and has co-authored over 45 scientific publications.  He is a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Society for Neurosciences.  He has adjunct appointments at Columbia University in the Department of Pharmacology and at University of Medicine and Dentistry, New Jersey in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.  His current focus is the development of novel therapeutics for cognitive dysfunction.

Philip Williams, PhD (confirmed) - Philip Williams received his undergraduate education at the University of Calgary, Canada, and his Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, in 2003.  After postdoctoral work at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California, from 2003-2006, he returned to the University of Hawaii to join the faculty as an assistant professor.

Dr. Williams' lab focuses primarily on the exploration of  marine resources  for the potential treatments for Alzheimer's disease and developing new methods to streamline the discovery of biological probes from natural sources.

Manfred Windisch (confirmed) - Dr. Manfred Windisch founded JSW Lifesciences GmbH, an independent international contract research organization located in Grambach, Austria in the year 1999. JSW specializes on research about neurodegenerative disorders and in his current capacity Dr. Windisch focuses on pharmacological studies of novel compounds for treatment Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease and stroke, from molecular screening up to in vivo model systems and the design of clinical studies. After graduation from the University of Graz in 1985 he spent several years heading a neurobiology group at the University with research in the field of brain metabolism and animal model development after which he was involved for many years in University and industrial research programs in Europe, North America and Asia. He established a global network of research collaborations and stimulated intensive scientific information exchange. Besides his involvement in research on neurotrophic and neuroprotective factors, he spearheaded several international clinical studies in Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia and ischemic stroke. He is a highly active member of the scientific community and has authored many original research articles in peer-reviewed journals and is organizing conferences in the field of drug development for treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. At the moment his research activities are concentrated on the role of alpha and beta-synuclein in pathogenesis of AD. The main focus is to explore therapeutic possibilities for preventing alpha-synuclein pathology and the interaction with amyloid deposition. He is also active in creating improved models of neurodegenerative diseases, which should allow early drug testing with a higher predictive value. As a member of several scientific advisory boards he is helping to coordinate preclinical and clinical research activities in that field on an international level.

Michael Wolfe, PhD (confirmed) - Michael S. Wolfe received his B.S. in chemistry in 1984

from the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science and earned his Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry in 1990 from the University of Kansas.  After postdoctoral stints at the University of Kansas (medicinal chemistry) and the NIH (cell biology), he joined the faculty of the University of Tennessee in Memphis in 1994. 

In 1999, he became Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, where his work has focused on understanding the molecular basis of Alzheimer’s disease and identifying effective approaches for pharmacological intervention.  In 2006, Dr. Wolfe founded the Laboratory for Experimental Alzheimer Drugs (LEAD) at Harvard Medical School.

Karin Yurko-Mauro, PhD (confirmed) - Karin Yurko-Mauro is the Associate Director of Clinical Research with Martek Biosciences Corporation. Dr. Yurko-Mauro has sixteen years of clinical and research experience including the development of drugs, biologics, nutritionals, and the evaluation of potential technologies.  In her current position at Martek, she leads the Aging and Dementia program in the Clinical Research Department, developing and managing clinical studies and regulatory strategies for Martek’s products, DHA and ARA.  Prior to joining Martek, Karin was a Senior Clinical Scientist at Cato Research, an international CRO for 7 years. As project leader for a Phase 2b clinical trial in acute ischemic stroke, Karin managed a large international project team from study inception to final study report.  Karin has worked on clinical and regulatory project teams in the therapeutic areas of neurology, cardiovascular disease, pediatric pulmonology, immunology and nutritionals.  Her professional experience is supported by graduate and postdoctoral training in pharmacology, neurochemistry, and protein chemistry.  Karin obtained her Ph.D. in Pharmacology at the Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA. Her dissertation research focused on PKC signaling in dopaminergic neurotransmission in the hippocampus. Karin received postdoctoral training at the Alfred I. DuPont Institute of the Nemours Foundation, Wilmington, DE and the NICHD, NIH, Bethesda, MD.  Karin also completed a Masters degree in Neuroscience at the University of Harford, Hartford, CT. During her postdoctoral training, Karin obtained a fellowship research grant from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation examining regulation of the CFTR signal transduction pathways and was awarded an IRTA fellowship at NIH. She has several publications and presentations and has co-authored a book chapter on clinical protocols in “Expediting Drug and Biologics Development: A Strategic Approach”, Linberg SE, ed.  Karin is an active member of the Society for Neuroscience, International Society to Advance Alzheimer Research and Treatment, and the Drug Information Association.

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