Howard Fillit, MD, Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation - Howard Fillit, MD, a geriatrician, neuroscientist and a leading expert in Alzheimer's disease, is the founding Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Aging (ISOA), an Estee Lauder family foundation founded in 1998, and the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF), an affiliated public charity founded in 2004. ISOA and ADDF share a common mission of accelerating drug discovery for Alzheimer’s disease through venture philanthropy. Dr. Fillit has had a distinguished academic medical career at The Rockefeller University and The Mount Sinai School of Medicine where he is a clinical professor of geriatrics and medicine and professor of neurobiology. He was previously the Corporate Medical Director for Medicare at New York Life, responsible for over 125,000 Medicare managed care members in five regional markets. He is the author or co-author of more than 250 scientific and clinical publications, and is the senior editor of the leading international Textbook of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology. Dr. Fillit has received several awards and honors including the Rita Hayworth Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Alzheimer’s Association. He also serves as a consultant to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, health care organizations and philanthropies.

Carmela R. Abraham, PhD, Boston University School of Medicine - Dr. Abraham was first introduced to Alzheimer’s disease (AD) research in 1980. Since then she participated in numerous studies trying to understand the biology of the amyoid precursor protein (APP), including its processing and function, and its neurotoxic and synaptotoxic fragment, amyloid beta protein (Abeta). Dr. Abraham obtained her PhD in Neuroscience from Harvard University and joined Boston University School of Medicine in 1989 where she became a Professor in 1999. Dr. Abraham’s laboratory studies the molecular mechanisms leading to normal brain aging and the pathological processes that culminate in AD. AD neuropathology is characterized by the accumulation of Abeta in the brain. She also works on understanding the reason patients carrying mutations that result in early onset AD accumulate more Abeta in their brains and at an earlier age that those patients who become ill at an older age. To this end she and her team study the role of APP dimerization in Abeta formation. They have supporting evidence that inhibiting APP dimerization with small molecule compounds could constitute another avenue for lowering Abeta in the brain. In the normal aging project Dr. Abraham’s team utilizes the rhesus monkey as a model for understanding changes that occur in the white matter during non-pathological aging. With microarray analysis they had identified genes that play crucial roles in brain dysfunction leading to cognitive decline. An example is Klotho, a cytoprotective, anti-aging protein. Dr. Abraham found that Klotho expression is considerably decreased in the aged brains of monkeys, rats, and mice. She and her team are now working to comprehensively characterize the role of Klotho in normal aging and disease. They have also discovered recently that Klotho can induce the differentiation of oligodendrocyte precursor cells into mature, myelinating oligodendrocytes. Since the myelin in the aging white matter and AD is compromised, enhancing Klotho expression could be beneficial by inducing myelin repair in normal aging and AD.

Karl-Heinz Braunewell, PhD, Southern Research Institute - Dr. Braunewell obtained his PhD in Biology in 1993 at the Institute for Neurobiology (Prof. M. Schachner) at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, and received further postdoctoral research training at the Department for Neurochemistry/Molecular Biology (Prof. E.D. Gundelfinger), Leibniz-Institute for Neurobiology in Magdeburg, Germany. In 1998, Dr. Braunewell became head of the Signal Transduction Research Group at the Leibniz-Institute for Neurobiology, and he was Lecturer in Biochemistry at the Medical Faculty of the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg. In 2001, Dr. Braunewell headed the Signal Transduction Research Group at the Neuroscience Research Center (NWFZ) of the Charite, Berlin and later became Assistant and Adjunct Professor for Physiology at the Johannes Muller-Institute, Medical Faculty, Charite, at Humboldt University in Berlin. Dr. Braunewell joined Southern Research in 2006, where he is currently an independent PI in the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department of the Drug Discovery Division. He is also a member of the faculty at the Comprehensive Neuroscience Center (CNC) at The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).Throughout his research career, Dr. Braunewell has focused on molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying brain function, particularly learning and memory. His current interest focuses on the role of neuronal calcium sensors and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in addiction, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease. At Southern Research, Dr. Braunewell is actively involved in drug discovery for targets in several CNS disorders including Alzheimer's disease, addiction, depression and schizophrenia.

Gabriella Chiosis, PhD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center - Dr. Gabriela Chiosis is a Principal Investigator and an Associate Member in the Program in Molecular Pharmacology and Chemistry at Sloan-Kettering Institute, and an Associate 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 several purine-scaffold Hsp90 inhibitors currently in clinical evaluation in patients with advanced cancers.

Chad Dickey, PhD, University of South Florida - Dr. Chad Dickey joined the faculty at the Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute in September 2008. Dr. Dickey earned his PhD from the University of South Florida under the direction of Dr. David Morgan in 2004. His post-doctoral training was done at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville under the direction of Dr. Michael Hutton, an expert in the field of Alzheimer’s disease genetics. He was a recipient of a New Investigator Award from the Alzheimer’s Association and a Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation/AFAR New Investigator Award in Alzheimer's Disease. Dr. Dickey has conducted two research projects for the Society for Progressive Supranuclear Palsy to study the mechanisms behind this particular form of hereditary dementia. He is currently funded through the NIH, the Alzheimer’s Association, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and CurePSP for his research related to molecular mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease and tauopathies. He lives in the Carrollwood area of Tampa with his wife Adria and his two sons, Luke and Jacob.

Karen Duff, PhD, Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute - Dr. Duff received her PhD from Sydney Brenner’s department at the University of Cambridge (UK) in 1991. From 1991-92 she undertook a post-doc position in London with Alison Goate, then from 1992-1994 with John Hardy at USF Tampa, FL where she held an assistant professor position from 1994-96. From 1996-1998 she was an associate professor at Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL. From 1998-2006 she held an associate professor position, at the Nathan Kline Institute/ New York University, New York. Since 2006 she has been a tenured professor at the Taub Institute at Columbia University, with a joint position at the New York State Psychiatric Institute where she continues her translational research program. She has been awarded several honors and awards including the Potamkin Prize in 2006.

In the last 20 years, Dr. Duff has genetically engineered mouse models for AD, tauopathies and synucleinopathies. These mice have been used in a wide range of studies from MRI and PET for diagnostics development, to proof-of-concept testing of therapeutic targets. Currently, her main interest is in studying how AD related pathology and dysfunction propagates though the brain, the role of aging and ApoE genotype in AD and the role of autophagy in tauopathies. Dr. Duff’s CV includes over 110 peer reviewed research articles and she is a regular speaker at scientific meetings around the world. Her work is mainly funded by the NIH.

Illana Gozes, PhD, Allon Therapeutics Inc. - Dr. Gozes is a Professor of Clinical Biochemistry, the Lily and Avraham Gildor Chair for the Investigation of Growth factors at Tel Aviv University (TAU) Sackler Faculty of Medicine, where she heads the Dr. Diana and Zelman Elton (Elbaum) Laboratory for Molecular Neuroendocrinology. Professor Gozes serves as the Director of the Adams Super Center for Brain Studies at Tel Aviv University and the Levie-Edersheim-Gitter Institute for Functional Brain Imaging, a collaborative project between Tel Aviv University and the Sourasky Medical Center. Professor Gozes serves or has served as a member (or chair) of several faculty/university/national and international committees including serving now as a member of the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University, the Tel Aviv University Senate, the Scientific Review Board of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (New York, USA), the Scientific Review Board of the Rett Foundation, member of several Editorial Boards (Peptides, American Journal of Alzheimer’s Research and other Dementias, Peptides Research and Therapeutics, Pharmaceutical Drug Design) and Past President of the Israel Society for Neuroscience. Professor Gozes is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience, the Secretary General of the European Neuropeptide Club and the Chair of the Summer Neuropeptide Conference, The International Advisory Committee of VIP PACAP and Related Peptides and Chair of the 2011 Conference.

Dr. Gozes is the scientific founder, Chief Scientific Officer of Allon Therapeutics, where she serves as a member of the Board of Directors. Allon was chosen as the “Most Innovative Development Company” in the New Economy 2010 Pharmaceutical & Healthcare Awards sponsored by New Economy Magazine and won the 2011 Gold Leaf Award as the Early Stage Company of the Year (Health) from BIOTECanada. Prof. Gozes has published extensively in the fields of molecular neuroscience and neuroprotection (>230 publications as cited PUBMED; >280 including a book, book chapters and reviews). She is co-inventor of more than 15 patents and applications (totaling >125 results found in the Worldwide data base for Gozes as an applicant or inventor, including the composition of matter patent on davunetide, Allon's lead compound.) Professor Gozes mentored >50 students toward successful MSc and PhD degrees.

Professor Gozes received a BSc from Tel Aviv University, a PhD from The Weizmann Institute of Science, was a Weizmann Postdoctoral Fellow at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Research Associate/Visiting Scientist at the Salk Institute and the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, a Senior Scientist/Associate Professor at the Weizmann Institute and a distinguished Fogarty-Scholar-in-Residence at the National Institutes of Health (USA).

William Hu, MD, PhD, Emory University School of Medicine - Dr. Hu is an assistant professor of neurology at the Emory University School of Medicine. He obtained his medical and graduate training at the Mayo Clinic, and post-doctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania. His current research interests focus on developing and refining multi-modal biomarkers for neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal lobar degenerations, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He lives in Decatur with his wife and son.

Rakez Kayed, PhD, University of Texas Medical Branch - Assistant Professor at the Departments of Neurology and Cell Biology and Neuroscience, and a member of George & Cynthia Mitchell Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases at University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX.

Dr. Kayed is a pioneer in the development of conformational antibodies and their applications, and has coauthored more than sixty articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Dr. Kayed's research focuses on tau and amyloid oligomers in neurodegenerative disorders, their structure, toxicity and role in the disease pathogenesis. We were able to engineer conformation specific mouse monoclonal antibodies against tau and amyloid oligomers. The antibodies we developed do not recognize endogenous functional proteins e.g. monomeric tau; they specifically bind and eliminate the pathological oligomeric form of the protein. We use these antibodies and other reagents and methods we developed to study neurodegenerative diseases in cell cultures, animal models and postmortem tissues.

These novel reagents have many applications, including vaccine development for treatment for AD and other tauopathies, early diagnosis and biomarkers, drug discovery and the design of new reagents that can decrease or eliminate tau and amyloid neurotoxicity.

Jeff Kuret, PhD, Ohio State University - 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 Drug Discovery (MNPS-C) review panel at the NIH Center for Scientific Review, and on the editorial boards of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and Current Alzheimer Research. Dr. Kuret’s laboratory focuses primarily on tau aggregation and neurofibrillary lesion formation in Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal lobar degeneration.

Donald C. Lo, PhD, Duke University Medical Center - Donald Lo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Duke University Medical Center, and has been engaged in drug discovery and development for neurodegenerative disorders and stroke for over 10 years. In 1997, he co-founded and was Chief Scientific Officer of the biotechnology company Cogent Neuroscience, which developed and implemented brain tissue based-assays for stroke, Huntington's disease, and Alzheimer's disease, the latter two indications in joint ventures with Elan Pharmaceuticals. In 2002, this technology was brought back into Duke University and incorporated into the new Center for Drug Discovery (CDD) for which Lo serves as Director. The Duke CDD currently pursues multiple neurological drug discovery and development programs in collaboration with major pharmaceutical firms, biotech companies, and non-profit disease research foundations.

Jose A. Luchsinger, MD, MPH, Columbia University - Jose Alejandro Luchsinger is a general internist and epidemiologist. Dr. Luchsinger has been working in risk factors for cognitive disorders including dementia and Alzheimer’s disease since 1999. His focus has been predominantly in the relationships of vascular and metabolic risk factors and diet with Alzheimer’s disease. He has been a co-investigator in a large cohort study of aging in New York City, and a principal investigator of a cohort study of cognition in persons with diabetes. He is also the principal investigator of a clinical trial of metformin, a medication for prevention of diabetes, in mild cognitive impairment. He leads the neurocognitive reading center of the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study, and cognition ancillary study to the Finnish Diabetes Prevention Program. He is the co-editor of the book “diabetes and the brain”, and has published several important peer reviewed articles on the relation of diet, diabetes, adiposity, insulin resistance, and vascular risk factors in general with cognitive disorders.

Robert W. Mahley, MD, PhD, Gladstone Institute for Neurological Disease and University of California, San Francisco - Dr. Robert W. Mahley is president emeritus/founder/senior investigator of The J. David Gladstone Institutes. He is an internationally known expert on heart disease, cholesterol metabolism and, more recently, Alzheimer’s disease. He studies plasma lipoproteins and particularly apolipoprotein (apo) E. His seminal research has defined apoE’s critical role in cholesterol homeostasis and atherosclerosis. Dr. Mahley has also made fundamental contributions to understanding the role of apoE in the nervous system, specifically in nerve injury and regeneration and in the remodeling of neurites on neuronal cells. These findings laid the groundwork for the explosion of research linking apoE4, a variant of apoE, to the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease and neurodegeneration. More recently, he has focused on therapeutic approaches to converting apoE4 to apoE3 both structurally and functionally and preventing the generation of apoE4 neurotoxic fragments. Dr. Mahley is also a professor of medicine and pathology at the University of California, San Francisco. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. He recently received the Builders of Science Award from Research!America for his leadership as Gladstone’s founding director and president, guiding its growth to become one of the world’s foremost independent research institutes.

Pavel A. Petukhov, PhD, University of Illinois at Chicago - PhD with Dr. Alexey Tkachev at Novosibirsk Institute of Organic Chemistry (1998), postdoc with Dr. John Keana at University of Oregon (1998-2000), postdoc with Dr. Alan Kozikowski at Georgetown University (2000-2003), Assistant Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago, College of Pharmacy, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy (2004-2008), Associate Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago (2008-present), Associate Faculty at Institute for Tuberculosis Research (2004 – present), Associate Professor at the Bioengineering Department, University of Illinois at Chicago (2007 - present).

Research interests: Medicinal chemistry, computer-aided drug design, chemical biology, drug discovery. Design of potent photoreactive probes for histone deacetylases (HDAC), understanding how they photocrosslink to different HDAC isoforms, and application of this knowledge to discovery of potent HDAC inhibitors with a desired HDAC isoform activity and an improved ADMET profile. Discovery of novel potent inhibitors of pantothenate synthetase and malate synthase, novel targets for non-replicating persistent tuberculosis. Design and development of novel therapeutics for neurological diseases, cancer, tuberculosis, and hepatitis B.

Allen Reitz, PhD, ALS Biopharma, LLC - Allen Reitz, PhD, is co-founder and CEO of ALS Biopharma, LLC (www.alsbiopharma.com), based at the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center in Doylestown, PA. He received a PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego and was at Johnson & Johnson for nearly 26 years at the Spring House, Pennsylvania facility, primarily in the area of CNS research including neurology and Alzheimer’s disease. He is inventor of 46 issued U.S. patents resulting in seven compounds that have entered human clinical trials, has greater than 130 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and is Editor of the journal Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry. His research interests include early drug discovery with a core competency in medicinal chemistry.

Allen D. Roses, MD, FRCP (hon.), Duke University - Allen D. Roses has established an international reputation for his work in pharmacogenetics, exploratory drug discovery, and clinical neuroscience. Dr. Roses founded Cabernet Pharmaceuticals in 2008 to provide pharmacogenetics (PGx) and project-management services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, clinical-research and managed-healthcare organizations, and academic institutions. He has formed a team of consultants with deep experience in the practical application of PGx to drug development. Dr. Roses also serves in several capacities at Duke University: as Jefferson-Pilot Professor of Neurobiology and Genetics, as Director of the Deane Drug Discovery Institute, and as Senior Scholar at the Fuqua School of Business. He recently returned to Duke after a decade-long career as a Senior Vice President at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and its corporate predecessor GlaxoWellcome (GW). Upon joining GW in 1997, he organized genetic strategies for susceptibility-gene discovery, pharmacogenetics strategy and implementation, and integration of genetics into medicine discovery and development. Subsequently at GSK, he headed research in clinical genetics, genomics, proteomics, pharmacogenetics, and bioinformatics in support of the entire R&D pipeline.

During his previous tenure at Duke, Dr. Roses was Jefferson Pilot Professor of Neurobiology and Neurology, Founding Director of the Joseph and Kathleen Bryan Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Chief of the Division of Neurology, and Director of the Center for Human Genetics. He was one of the first clinical neurologists to apply molecular genetic strategies to neurological diseases. His laboratory reported the chromosomal location for more than 15 diseases, including several muscular dystrophies and Lou Gehrig’s disease. He led the team that in 1992 identified APOE as a major, widely confirmed susceptibility gene in common late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Translation of these findings to metabolic-pathway analyses and drug discovery and development continued in GSK.

Dr. Roses was a member of the Science Board of the US Food and Drug Administration between 2003-2007. He was a member of the Board’s Subcommittee on Science and Technology that in 2007 authored the report “FDA Science and Mission at Risk.” He continues to consult with the FDA and other regulatory agencies in the field of pharmacogenetics and companion diagnostics.

Judith Siuciak, PhD, The Biomarkers Consortium, Foundation for the National Institutes of Health - Dr. Judy Siuciak, Scientific Program Manager at The Biomarkers Consortium, manages the activities and projects of the Neuroscience Steering Committee. Prior to joining The Biomarkers Consortium, Dr. Siuciak spent 17 years working in industry where she directed in vivo pharmacology laboratories engaged in CNS drug discovery research. While at Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb, her laboratory focused on developing novel therapies for schizophrenia, cognitive dysfunction and depression. Dr. Siuciak’s early career was spent at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, in Tarrytown, NY, where her laboratory focused on the neurochemical and behavioral effects of neurotrophic factors, and their role in depression and neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Siuciak received her PhD in Neuropharmacology from the University of Illinois, College of Medicine. She is a co-inventor on two patents and has authored over 40 scientific publications in the field of Neuroscience and CNS drug discovery.

Daniel M. Skovronsky, MD, PhD, Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, Inc., A wholly-owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company - Dr. Skovronsky, President and CEO of Avid, founded the company and began operations in mid-2005. Over the last six years, Dr. Skovronsky has led clinical programs in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Diabetes at Avid. Under Dr. Skovronsky’s leadership, Avid raised $70M in venture capital financing to support this research. Dr. Skovronsky has more than 40 publications in the field and has served as principle investigator on numerous NIH research grants. Dr. Skovronsky trained as a resident in Pathology and completed a fellowship in Neuropathology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Skovronsky received his MD and PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and did his undergraduate training in molecular biochemistry at Yale University.

Dr. Skovronsky was named by the Philadelphia Business Journal as one of their “Forty under Forty” business leaders in the region in 2006, by PharmaVoice magazine as one of the 100 top pharmaceutical business leaders in 2007, by Ernst & Young as the Entrepreneur of the Year in the Greater Philadelphia Region in 2009 and Life Sciences CEO of the Year by the Philadelphia Business Journal in 2010. Avid was named the Life Sciences Startup Company of the Year in 2007 by the Eastern Technology Council, received the 2007 Frost & Sullivan Molecular Imaging Technology Innovation of the Year award and was named Best Incubator Company and Best Local-Based-Research Company in 2010 by the Philadelphia Business Journal. Avid's lead product candidate, Florbetapir (AV-45), was recently named the #1 Innovation of 2011 by the Cleveland Clinic. Avid was acquired by Eli Lilly & Company in December of 2010 for up to $800 million and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly.

Grace E. Stutzmann, PhD, Rosalind Franklin University School of Medicine - Grace E. Stutzmann received her PhD from the Center for Neural Science at New York University in 1999, working with Joseph E. LeDoux. Following this, she was a postdoctoral research fellow with George Aghajanian at Yale University Medical School. A second post doctoral research fellow position followed at UC Irvine, working with Ian Parker and Frank LaFerla in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior and the Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia. Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in Neuroscience at Rosalind Franklin University / The Chicago Medical School. Her research focuses on studying early pathogenic mechanisms contributing to AD pathogenesis, and uncovering novel therapeutic strategies to prevent disease progression. Her primary techniques include live cell imaging, electrophysiology, and molecular approaches in mouse models of AD, with particular expertise in 2-photon calcium imaging and patch clamp recordings in brain slice preparations. Grace is a member of the Society for Neuroscience, The New York Academy of Sciences, and the Society of General Physiologists.

Zhiqun Tan, MD, PhD, University of California, Irvine - Zhiqun Tan is an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Neurology and Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (iMIND) at University of California Irvine School of Medicine. He received his MD (BM) in 1985 from Tongji Medical University, BSc in Biochemistry in 1987 and PhD in Biological Chemistry in 1993 from Wuhan University in China. Then he worked as a faculty member at Wuhan University in the field of environmental toxicology. 1996 he moved to the United Stated and trained as a research neuroscientist at University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. He joined the faculty of UCI Neurology in 2002 and has been studying on neuronal degeneration with an emphasis on Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Tan’s group has recently identified Alzheimer’s pathological hallmarks in the retina in both Alzheimer’s transgenic mice and postmortem tissues from AD patients. His research is currently focused on understanding Alzheimer’s lesions in the retina as a biomarker for an assessment of the disease activity through a non-invasive imaging approach. He is also highly motivated to develop therapeutic strategies for the treatment of neurodegenerative disorders using naturopathic compounds. In this regard, his recent work has demonstrated efficacy of tetramethylpyrazine, a small molecule from chuanxiong (a traditional Chinese medicine), for both improvement of cognitive function and amelioration of pathological lesions in the brain and eye in Alzheimer’s transgenic mice. He is evaluating more compounds from known herbal medicines for the potential therapeutic use for Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Eugenia Trushina, PhD, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine - Dr. Trushina is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic Rochester. She received her doctoral degree from Saratov State University in Russia. Dr. Trushina received her postdoctoral training at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester where she worked with Drs. C. McMurray, R. Pagano and M. McNiven. Dr. Trushina’s laboratory is focused on the understanding the role that mitochondrial dysfunction plays in multiple neurodegenerative disorders including Huntington’s and Alzheimer’s Diseases. Her research interests involve identification of the molecular mechanisms involved in the inhibition of mitochondrial dynamics and function, testing new mitochondria-targeted therapeutic approaches, and identification of specific biomarkers useful for early diagnosis and monitoring/predicting the disease progression. In addition to her ADDF award, Dr. Trushina is a recipient of AHAF award.

D. Martin Watterson, PhD, Northwestern University - Daniel Martin Watterson holds the John G. Searle Endowed Chair Professorship at Northwestern University where he is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology & Biological Chemistry at the Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Watterson has worked successfully with major pharmaceutical and biotech companies in diverse areas of drug discovery, participated actively in bringing new drug candidates to clinical development, served on the Board of Directors for technology companies, founded profitable commercial enterprises with success in deliverables and timelines, and assisted colleagues and various government agencies with science and technology development. At Northwestern, he has served as a Department Chair, Co-Director of the Graduate Curriculum in Drug Discovery and Chemical Biology and a University Center, and founding director of the Drug Discovery Program. The Drug Discovery Program, founded in 1996 and now a university center, provides a supportive intellectual infrastructure to assist cooperative faculty participants in moving their basic science research toward preclinical drug discovery and eventual commercial development, mainly through out-license. Earlier small molecule deliverables by Northwestern faculty in the area of CNS drug discovery range from a mature blockbuster drug marketed by a major pharmaceutical company to potential disease-modifying novel candidates with potential for multiple indications that are currently in promising clinical trials.

The academic basic science research in Dr. Watterson’s laboratory continues to be on the elucidation of signal transduction pathways in eukaryotic organisms, examination of their role in physiology and disease states, and leveraging of the emergent knowledge of molecular and biological mechanisms to identify new points of potential therapeutic interventions. He has published in the areas of drug discovery, signal transduction, structural biology, pharmacology and medicinal chemistry, and previously developed diagnostic and research tools as well as novel small molecule therapeutic candidates licensed to industry.

Before moving to Northwestern University, Dr. Watterson held faculty positions at The Rockefeller University, where he was an Andrew Mellon Fellow, and at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where he was Professor of Pharmacology and Howard Hughes Investigator. His doctoral training in chemical sciences was at Emory University, followed by postdoctoral training in biochemistry and bioorganic chemistry at Duke University Medical Center where he was supported by a National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health.

Ryan J. Watts, PhD, Genentech - Dr. Ryan J. Watts is an Associate Director and Head of the Neurodegeneration Labs at Genentech. He received his PhD from Stanford University studying nervous system development. Dr. Watts joined Genentech in 2004 to develop therapies targeting vascular biology, and more recently initiated research programs on neurodegeneration and the bloodbrain barrier. Dr. Watts received his undergraduate training from the University of Utah with a BS in Biology.

Tim West, PhD, C2N Diagnostics - Dr. Tim West graduated from the Washington University School of Medicine in 2006 with a PhD in Neuroscience and Molecular & Cellular Biology. His thesis work, completed in the laboratory of Dr. David Holtzman within the Department of Neurology, involved investigating the mechanisms of cell death after ischemic stroke in newborns. Following the completion of his PhD, Dr. West served as a Post-Doctoral Fellow and later Staff Scientist in Dr. Holtzman’s laboratory. He also served as the Assistant Director of Technology Development for the Hope Center for Neurological Disorders. Dr. West joined C2N Diagnostics in November, 2007 as the Director of Laboratory Operations and later as the Vice President of Research and Development. During his time at C2N, Dr. West has overseen the transference of the SILK technology to the company, and implemented quality controls and systems within the company. Dr. West has also led C2N’s research and development efforts in the proteomic measurement of other proteins implicated in neurodegeneration. He has served as a director to multiple clinical studies using the SILK technology. In addition, Dr. West has served as the Company’s Principal Investigator on numerous grants awarded from multiple private foundation and public sources of support for funding.

Brandon Wustman, PhD, Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. - Brandon Wustman, PhD, heads the Preclinical Biology department at Amicus Therapeutics, Inc. and specializes in the development of pharmacological chaperones for the treatment of diseases associated with the misfolding and mistrafficking of proteins. Dr. Wustman received his PhD in biology from Michigan Technological University in 1998 and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the Alexander Von Humboldt Society where he continued his research on protein folding and trafficking at the University of Cologne in Cologne, Germany. In 2000, Dr. Wustman joined Dr. John Evan’s laboratory in the chemistry department at New York University to study protein folding at the molecular level using a combination of NMR spectroscopy, MALDI/TOF and molecular modeling techniques.

Since joining Amicus in 2002, he has applied a wide variety of analytical, biochemical and cell biological techniques to 1) better understand the cellular pathologies of various lysosomal storage disorders and their relationship to other more common neurodegenerative disorders and 2) to study the effects of pharmacological chaperones on protein folding, trafficking and cellular stress pathways. His labs’ drug discovery efforts and mechanism-of-action studies have contributed to the development of three therapies that entered clinical trials as potential treatments for Fabry (Phase 3), Gaucher (Phase 2) and Pompe (Phase 2) diseases. Additionally, his lab has been exploring how impaired glycosphingolipid/ganglioside metabolism may contribute to neurodegeneration and developing pharmacological chaperones that can modulate lipid metabolism as a approach to treating neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. We have identified several animal models with impaired glycosphingolipid catabolism that develop PD- and AD-like pathologies and some of these animals are being used to study the links between glycosphingolipid metabolism disorders and various neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Gaucher and Parkinson’s diseases) and to examine the effectiveness of pharmacological chaperone treatment. In 2006, his team received a “Therapeutics Initiative Grant” from the Michael J. Fox Foundation to further investigate the use of chaperones for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and now several molecules are in advanced preclinical development for PD. In 2010, he received a grant from the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation which is focused on demonstrating in vivo proof-of-concept for increasing ganglioside catabolism as a potential therapy for Alzheimer’s disease. Additionally, his team is currently developing presenilin-targeted pharmacological chaperones for the treatment of early onset familial Alzheimer’s disease.