Plenary speakers

Paul S. Aisen

Paul S. Aisen, MD, is Professor of Neurosciences at the University of California, and Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study, a consortium funded by the National Institute on Aging to develop methods and conduct clinical trials. His primary research interest is the development of new treatment strategies for Alzheimer’s disease. After graduating from Harvard College, Dr. Aisen received his medical degree from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1979 and pursued his clinical training as a Resident in the Department of Medicine at the University Hospitals of Cleveland, and in the Department of Medicine at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. He completed his Fellowship in the Division of Rheumatology at the New York University Medical Center before returning to The Mount Sinai Hospital as Chief Resident in the Department of Medicine. Dr. Aisen is a diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine, with specialty certification in Rheumatology and Geriatric Medicine. Dr. Aisen is currently directing a number of National Institute of Health-funded multi-center therapeutic trials, and collaborates extensively with the pharmaceutical industry.

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David Bennett

David A. Bennett, MD, is the Robert C. Borwell Professor of Neurological Sciences and director of the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center. Dr. Bennett received the degree of bachelor of science with high distinction and high honors in physiology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1979. He earned his doctorate in medicine from Rush Medical College in 1984. Following his medical internship, Dr. Bennett returned to Rush for residency training in neurology and a research fellowship in dementia, which he completed in 1989. Dr. Bennett is internationally known for his research regarding the causes, treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease and other common chronic neurologic conditions of aging. His primary research interest is identifying the neurobiologic pathways whereby risk factors lead to the development of Alzheimer’s disease and other age-related neurologic conditions. Dr. Bennett is principal investigator of several studies funded by the National Institute on Aging, including the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Core Center, the Religious Orders Study and the Memory and Aging Project. He also directs the Regional Alzheimer’s Disease Assistance Center for Northern Illinois for the Illinois Department of Public Health. He has more than 225 peer-reviewed manuscript publications.

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Lester I. Binder

Lester I. Binder received his PhD in 1978 from Yale and did postdoctoral work at the University of Virginia prior to taking his first academic postion in the Medical School at UAB. Here he rose to the level of tenured associate professor. In 1993, he left academics to work in a small biotech startup for two years before joining the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL. Dr. Binder's doctoral work included the co-discovery of microtubule polarity, while his postdoctoral work entailed studies of Microtubule-Associated Proteins in mammalian brain during which he manufactured the first monoclonal antibodies against tau. In collaboration with Khalid Iqbal and John Wood's lab, the antibodies made while at Virginia were employed in Alzheimer's brain tissue resulting in the discovery of abnormally phosphorylated tau in the neurofibrillary tangle. Since then, Dr. Binder's work has focused on the mechanism leading to tau polymerization into filaments in AD and other tauopathies. Dr. Binder is the recipient of MERIT Award from the NIA and recently was named the Abbott Labs/Duane and Susan Burnham Research Professor of Genetic and Molecular Medicine at the Feinberg School of Medicine.

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Joseph Buxbaum

Dr. Buxbaum is a Professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, in the Departments of Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Genetics and Genomic Sciences, having received his PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science. Dr. Buxbaum has been involved in studies of Alzheimer's disease, focusing in part on the cell biology and signaling of the amyloid protein precursor (APP). Dr. Buxbaum currently studies the molecular complex involving APP and other proteins, while identifying genes whose expression is regulated by APP and APP cleavage products. In addition, he and his collaborators are examining the role of cholesterol and cholesterol-binding proteins in APP processing and signaling and Alzheimer's disease.

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Dennis Dickson

Dr. Dickson has devoted his career to the neuropathology of degenerative brain disease, particularly disorders that produce dementia and Parkinsonism, and has authored or co-authored over 400 peer-reviewed papers and 50 book chapters. He is the neuropathologist for the Mayo Clinic and Florida Alzheimer Disease Research Centers and the Mayo Clinic Parkinson’s Disease Center. He has personally evaluated over 3,000 brains of individuals with degenerative brain disease. He started his professional career in the laboratory of Dr. Robert D. Terry at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. He was one of the first to realize the importance of Lewy body dementia and he participated in formulation of neuropathologic criteria for it. He also studied disorders that produce frontotemporal dementia, including Pick’s disease, progressive supranuclear palsy, frontotemporal dementia and Parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17 (FTDP-17) and corticobasal degeneration, as well as frontotemporal degeneration with ubiquitin (TDP-43) inclusions. Dr. Dickson received B.S. (Biochemistry) and M.D. degrees from the University of Iowa College of Medicine. He was awarded the Metropolitan Life Award in 2001. He is past president of the American Association of Neuropathologists.

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Nick Fox

Professor Nick Fox’s first degree was in Physics and Physiology from Cambridge University. He subsequently graduated in Medicine from the University of London and then specialised in cognitive neurology. He has held research fellowships from the Alzheimer’s Society and subsequently from the Medical Research Council (MRC). He is currently Professor of Clinical Neurology at the Institute of Neurology, University College London and visiting Professor at the Vrije University Amsterdam. He is consultant neurologist to The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery London. His research has focussed on MRI in Alzheimer's disease and related disorders. He has developed techniques for registration-based atrophy measurements from serial MRI. Using these techniques he has shown that rates of cerebral atrophy predict conversion to AD from mild cognitive impairment and that rates of atrophy correlate with clinical decline. These techniques are now widely used in longitudinal studies and clinical trials in AD and in a number of other neurological conditions.

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Lutz Frolich

Since 2003, Lutz Frolich is Professor of Geriatric Psychiatry and Head of the Division of Geriatric Psychiatry at the Central Institute for Mental Health, Mannheim, Germany. He graduated from Medical School in 1982. After working at the Dept. of Family Therapy, University of Heidelberg, he was Research Fellow with Professor Siegfried Hoyer at the University of Heidelberg and with Professor Peter Riederer at the University of Wurzburg. After clinical training at the Depts. of Psychiatry and Neurology, University of Wurzburg, Germany, he worked at the Dept. of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University of Frankfurt, Germany. He received his habilitation (eq. to Ph.D.) with experimental work on Insulin and insulin receptors in the brain in Alzheimer’s disease.

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Sam Gandy

Sam Gandy, MD, PhD is Sinai Professor of Alzheimer’s Disease Research, Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry, Associate Director of the Mount Sinai Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center in New York City, and Chair, National Medical and Scientific Advisory Council of the Alzheimer's Association.

Dr. Gandy is an international expert in the metabolism of the sticky substance called amyloid that clogs the brain in patients with Alzheimer’s.  In 1989, Dr. Gandy and his team discovered the first drugs that could lower formation of amyloid.  Dr. Gandy has written more than 150 original papers, chapters and reviews on this topic.  Dr. Gandy has received continuous NIH funding for his research on amyloid metabolism since 1986.

Dr. Gandy is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for the journals Neurodegenerative Diseases and Current Alzheimer Research.  He is Associate Editor of the journal Alzheimer Disease and the journal Molecular Neurodegeneration, Consulting Editor of The Journal of Clinical Investigation, and Past Director of the Cold Spring Harbor and The Wellcome Trust Annual Summer Neurobiology of Human Neurological Disorders.  He is chief organizer for the Cold Spring Harbor Bi-Annual Winter Biotechnology Conference on Therapeutic Opportunities in Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Dr. Gandy received his MD and PhD at the Medical University of South Carolina.  He did his postgraduate work at the Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and Cornell University Medical College.  Dr. Gandy completed his post doctorate at The Rockefeller University, where he was appointed assistant professor in the laboratory of Paul Greengard, 2000 Laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  Dr. Gandy was appointed associate professor neurology and neurosciences at Cornell University Medical College in 1992.  In 1997, he moved to New York University where he served as professor of psychiatry and cell biology until his appointment as Paul C. Brucker, MD Professor of Neuroscience at Jefferson Medical College and Director of the Farber Institute for Neurosciences in 2001.  In 2007, he assumed his current post as Sinai Professor of Alzheimer’s Disease Research at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

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Frank LaFerla

Professor Frank LaFerla’s research is focused on understanding the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease, the most common form of dementia among the elderly. His laboratory has developed several transgenic mouse models of neurodegenerative disorders including the first transgenic mouse model of Alzheimer disease that recapitulates the two major neuropathological lesions, plaques and tangles. This mouse model, referred to as the 3xTg-AD mice, has been widely distributed to researchers throughout the USA and over 20 countries throughout the world. His laboratory has used this model to understand the relationship between plaques and tangles and how each affects the development of the other, and more significantly, this model has proven to be invaluable for the pre-clinical evaluation of novel therapeutic compounds.

Dr. LaFerla is a professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior at the University of California, Irvine. He is also the Co-Director of the Institute for Brain Aging and Dementia at Irvine and a Fellow of the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory. He also serves as director of the UCI Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program. His graduate training was completed at the University of Minnesota where he earned his Ph.D. in the field of virology in 1990. He subsequently was a postdoctoral fellow at the Holland Laboratory of the American Red Cross before moving to Irvine as an assistant professor in late 1995. He has received several honors for his research accomplishments including the Ruth Salta Junior Investigator Achievement Award from the American Health Assistance Foundation, Zenith Fellows Award from the Alzheimer Association, UCI Chancellor’s Fellow, Distinguished Mid-career Faculty Research Award, and the Promising Work Award from the Metropolitan Life Foundation for Medical Research.

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Marsel Mesulam

Marsel Mesulam received the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in 1968 and Medical Doctor in 1972, both from Harvard. He was appointed Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School where he founded and led the Behavioral Neurology Unit of Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital. In 1994 he was appointed Dunbar Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry and the Director of the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

His research addresses the connectivity of the monkey brain, the organization of cholinergic pathways, the representation of cognitive functions by large-scale networks, and the neurobiology of dementias. He introduced a new method for tracing pathways by axonal transport, identified the source of cortical cholinergic pathways in the primate brain, and characterized a language-based dementia known as primary progressive aphasia.

His trainees hold leadership positions in the US and abroad. He has published more than 300 research papers and edited a textbook of Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology. He is past Vice President of the American Association of Neurology and past President of the Organization of Human Brain Mapping. His current research focuses on the functional imaging of neurocognitive networks and on the pathophysiology of focal dementias.

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Daniel M. Michaelson

Daniel M. Michaelson received his BSc with a major in mathematics and physics from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a PhD in biophysics from the University of California at Berkeley. His research in the neurosciences started as a post doc while at the California Institute of Technology where his research focused on the study and functional reconstitution of acetylcholine receptors. He then moved to Tel Aviv University where his research focused on the cholinergic nerve terminal and preseynaptic receptors. These studies of how the system works led he and his laboratory to the study of its malfunction and Alzheimer’s disease. Their current research focuses on apoE4 and on the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying its pathological effects.  He is the incumbent of the Meriam Leach Chair of Molecular neurodegeneration at Tel Aviv University and the director of the Rabin Institute for Neurobiology.

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John Morris

John C. Morris, MD, is the Harvey A. and Dorismae Hacker Friedman Distinguished Professor of Neurology at the Washington University School of Medicine, where he also directs. the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the Center for Aging. Dr Morris received his MD from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry in 1974. He completed his internship at San Francisco General Hospital and residency programs in medicine (Akron General Medical Center) and neurology (Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital). He joined Washington University in 1982 as a postdoctoral fellow in neuropharmacology, was appointed as Instructor in Neurology in 1983, named Harvey A. and Dorismae Hacker Friedman Professor of Neurology in 1998. Dr Morris is a former member of the National Board of Directors of the Alzheimer’s Association and currently serves on its Medical and Scientific Advisory Committee. He is the author of over 250 peer-reviewed articles, has contributed numerous review articles, book chapters, and editorials to the medical literature, and edited both editions of the Handbook of Dementing Illnesses. He received the Alzheimer’s Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004, the 2004 MetLife Foundation Award for Medical Research in Alzheimer’s Disease, and the 2005 Potamkin Prize from the American Academy of Neurology.

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Andrew Saykin

Andrew Saykin received a BA from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and an MS and PsyD from Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia. He joined the School of Medicine faculty in November 2006 as director of a new transdisciplinary IU Center for Neuroimaging. Dr. Saykin's NIH and foundation sponsored research program focuses on the use of brain imaging and genomic methods to study mechanisms of memory dysfunction and treatment response in neurological and psychiatric disorders. Current projects examine advanced imaging methods for early preclinical detection of Alzheimer's disease, the neural basis of cancer chemotherapy-induced cognitive changes, and alterations in brain activity and connectivity in schizophrenia. Dr. Saykin has served on several NIH study sections and the Board of Directors of the American Board of Clinical Neuropsychology and the International Neuropsychological Society. He is the founding Editor-in-Chief of a new Springer journal, Brain Imaging and Behavior, which begins publication in 2007.

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Eric Siemers

Eric Siemers, MD is Medical Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Team at Eli Lilly and a Clinical Associate Professor of Neurology at the Indiana University School of medicine. His previous research includes investigations of presymptomatic individuals at risk for Huntington’s disease and participation in numerous clinical trials for Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases sponsored by industry and NIH.

Dr. Siemers is a member of the Alzheimer’s Association Research Roundtable and is a member of the Steering Committee for the NIA-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, where he also served as the chair of the Industry Scientific Advisory Board in 2007. He is a member of the Neuroscience Steering Committee of the Biomarker Consortium established by the Foundation for the NIH. Dr. Siemers serves on steering committees for NIH-funded studies seeking to identify susceptibility genes for Parkinson’s disease and seeking to characterize clinical progression in presymptomatic subjects with Huntington’s disease.

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Gopal Thinakaran

Gopal Thinakaran is an Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Neurology at the University of Chicago. He graduated with a PhD degree in molecular biology and genetics from University of Guelph, Canada in 1992. He then trained as a post-doctoral fellow in the Division of Neuropathology, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and rose to the rank of Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology. In 1999, he moved to the University of Chicago where he leads a group investigating the molecular and cellular biology of amyloid precursor protein trafficking and processing by gamma secretase. Over the years research in Dr. Thinakaran’s lab has focused on a better understanding of the physiological and pathological functions of presenilins, regulation of amyloid precursor protein trafficking, and characterization of the subcellular sites and membrane microdomains involved in the generation of beta amyloid peptides. Dr. Thinakaran uses an integrated approach that combines hypothesis driven mutagenesis, biochemical characterization, detailed subcellular localization and live imaging, and electrophysiology strategies to accomplish his goals. Dr. Thinakaran is the recipient of Ruth Salta Junior Investigator Achievement Award for outstanding contribution to Alzheimer’s disease research (American Health Assistance Foundation) and Zenith Fellows Award (Alzheimer’s Association).

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Lawrence Whalley

Lawrence Whalley graduated in medicine in 1969 from the University of Newcatle upon Tyne, proceeding to MD in 1976. He trained in Oxford and Edinburgh in psychiatry, epidemiology and psychoneuroendocrinology before beginning his research in Alzheimer´s disease (AD). He was known for small area analyses of environmental and genetic factors in early onset AD. In 1988, he began and long and fruitful research collaboration with Ian Deary and John Starr completing many follow up studies of survivors of the Scottish Mental Surveys of 1921 and 1936. He held a Welcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship (2001-2006). In 2006, his joint studies were awarded the MacCallan Prize for research in neurology and psychiatry. He has held the Crombie Ross Professorship of Mental Health at the University of Aberdeen since 1992. He has authored over 200 peer reviewed papers, edited four and authored five books.

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Margaret A. Pericak-Vance

Margaret Pericak-Vance, PhD, is Director of the Miami Institute for Human Genomics (MIHG) and Professor of Medicine at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. She received her PhD in Medical Genetics from Indiana University. She is a founding fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics and a board-certified PhD medical geneticist. Dr. Pericak-Vance pioneered the use of novel disease gene mapping methods that led to the identification of apolipoprotein E (APOE) as the major susceptibility gene for Alzheimer’s disease. In 1997, Newsweek magazine named Dr. Pericak-Vance to the Century Club: 100 People to Watch as We Move to the Next Millennium.

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