The International Research Grant Program Council

• Washington University School of Medicine, Gainesville, Fla., Professor of Neuroscience, Director of the Center for Translational Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases, Investigator at the Evelyn F. and William L . McKnight Brain Institute and the Fixel Institute for Neurological Diseases

Dr. Ganesh Babulal is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine, an affiliated investigator of the Knight Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and a faculty scholar with the Washington University Institute for Public Health. His research program investigates how cognitive, emotive and physical age-related changes affect instrumental activities of daily living among older adults with chronic neurological diseases, specifically dementia. Dr. Babulal’s current work examines changes in driving performance and behavior among older adults with and without pre-clinical Alzheimer’s. Dr. Babulal also has strong interests in how the prevalence of cognitive impairment and dementia in low and middle-income countries are influenced by social determinants of health, including multidimensional poverty, literacy/numeracy, stigma, armed conflict and disability.

• University of California – Davis, Davis, Calif., Director, Alzheimer’s Disease Center

Charles DeCarli, M.D., is Distinguished Professor of Neurology at the University of California at Davis, California; and recipient of the Victor and Genevieve Orsi Chair in Alzheimer’s Research. He is the Director of the U.C. Davis Alzheimer’s Disease Center, a United States National Institutes of Health funded Alzheimer’s research center. He is also Director of the Imaging of Dementia and Aging (IDeA) laboratory. His research focuses on using advanced structural and functional brain imaging to study normal aging, mild cognitive impairment and dementia; as well as the role of genetics, cerebrovascular and Alzheimer’s disease on these processes. He is a recipient of the J. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine—Imaging of the Aging Brain in recognition of his work.

• Fan Fan, M.D., M.S., FAHA, Jackson, Miss., Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology

Fan Fan, M.D., M.S., FAHA is a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). Fan received her M.D. from Qingdao Medical College in China, and M.S. in Biomedical Science and Pharmacology at UMMC. Her research focuses on the genetic basis of the cerebral and renal microvascular dysfunction in end-organ damage with aging, hypertension and diabetes. She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed articles, and received 16 institutional, national and international awards. She has received grants from the NIH, AHA and Pharmaceutical Co., is currently a principal investigator on a COBRE project and RO1 grant, and a co-investigator or mentor on several projects funded by the NIH, National Natural Science Foundation of China, and China Scholarship Council.

• University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Philadelphia, Pa., Anthony Buividas Term Chair in Gerontology

Dr. Nancy Hodgson is the Anthony Buividas Term Chair in Gerontology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. For the past 25 years, she has been involved in developing, evaluating and implementing interventions to improve the lives of persons with dementia and their families in community-based settings. Formerly Associate Director of Implementation Science at the Johns Hopkins Center for Innovative Care in Aging (2014 - 2016) and the Director of Research at the Polisher Research Institute (2005 - 2007), her program of research is specifically focused on the development and translation of biobehavioral interventions to ease neuropsychiatric symptoms for diverse populations of cognitively impaired older adults. She works collaboratively with clinicians, community agencies and long-term care organizations in testing and implementing evidence-based interventions that supports physical, social and emotional functioning. Dr. Hodgson is a Fellow in the American Academy of Nursing (FAAN) and a Fellow in the Gerontological Society of America (FGSA).

• Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas

Dr. Jankowsky obtained her undergraduate degree in biology from Amherst College in Massachusetts, followed by her Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience from Caltech. In 2000, she moved to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine for postdoctoral training in neuropathology, where she first began working on Alzheimer's disease. She returned to Caltech as a Senior Research Fellow, before starting her own laboratory at Baylor College of Medicine in 2008 where her laboratory focuses on the biology of Alzheimer’s. She has received numerous awards for her work, including the NARSAD Young Investigator Award, the NIH Director's New Innovator Award, and most recently the Alzheimer's Association Zenith Fellows Award. Her current work examines three basic questions about Alzheimer's pathogenesis: How does aging increase risk of disease? How do genetics influence this risk? And what makes particular brain areas susceptible to degeneration while others are spared? Outside of the laboratory, she volunteers with the Houston greyhound rescue group to help find homes for retired racers.

• Columbia University, New York, N.Y., Professor, Neuropsychology in Neurology

Jennifer Manly, Ph.D. is a Professor of Neuropsychology in Neurology at the Taub Institute for Research in Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University. Her research focuses on mechanisms of disparities in cognitive aging and Alzheimer’s. She received Early Career awards from the Society for Clinical Neuropsychology and the National Academy of Neuropsychology, received the Tony Wong Diversity Award for Outstanding Mentorship and the International Neuropsychological Society’s Paul Satz Career Mentoring Award, and is an APA Fellow. She served on the HHS Advisory Council on Alzheimer's Research, Care and Services from 2011 - 2015.

• New York University School of Medicine, New York, N.Y., Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience & Physiology, Department of Neurology

Dr. Masurkar earned his B.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and M.D., Ph.D. in neuroscience from Yale University. He completed his neurology residency, behavioral neurology fellowship and postdoctoral scientific training at Columbia University. In 2016 he joined the Department of Neurology at the NYU School of Medicine, where he is an Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience & Physiology. There, he combines clinical practice with a translational research program on early Alzheimer's. His interests focus on improving our understanding of neural circuits vulnerable at early stages and clinical symptoms that arise from dysfunction in those structures. To accomplish this, he leads a basic science team applying electrophysiological and molecular techniques in animal models, and also directs the Clinical Core of the NYU Alzheimer's Disease Center to address these issues in human subjects. He is also investigator on interventional clinical trials focused on early Alzheimer's.

• University of Houston, Houston, Texas, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology

Dr. Luis D. Medina is a bilingual and bicultural, licensed clinical psychologist and cultural neuropsychologist. He received his B.A. in psychology from Yale University and his M.S. and Ph.D. in clinical psychology / neuropsychology from the San Diego State University/University of California San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology. Dr. Medina completed his clinical pre-doctoral internship at the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Medical Center followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in adult clinical neuropsychology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. As a member of the Rocky Mountain Alzheimer’s Disease Center at the University of Colorado, he performed postdoctoral research in cognitive aging and neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Medina is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Houston. His research examines the cultural neuroscience of cognitive aging, particularly in the context of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD), as well as the clinical assessment and diagnosis of ADRD in underrepresented populations.

• University of California – San Francisco, San Francisco, Calif., Clinical Instructor

Dr. David Soleimani-Meigooni completed his neurology residency at Washington University, where he was chief resident for education and quality improvement. He is presently a behavioral neurology fellow and clinical instructor at the University of California - San Francisco Memory and Aging Center. His research focuses on advancing the precision use of PET biomarkers for diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases. The Alzheimer’s Association Clinician Scientist Fellowship Program is supporting this research.

• Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, Associate Professor of Neurochemistry and Molecular Neurobiology

Dr. Nielsen is an Associate Professor of neurochemistry and molecular neurobiology at the department of biochemistry and biophysics at Stockholm University, Sweden. She earned her Ph.D. in medicine at Lund University (Sweden) and continued her training at the VU Medical Center in Amsterdam (the Netherlands) and at the Mayo Clinic (USA). Dr. Nielsen heads the Translational Neurodegeneration Laboratory at Stockholm University with research interests including clinical biomarker discovery, establishment of an APOE4-specific liver phenotype with relevance to neurodegeneration, and biological mechanisms linking alpha-synuclein to glucose and lipid metabolism in the brain. Dr. Nielsen is a senior editor for Molecular Neurodegeneration, an associate editor for the Journal of Alzheimer’s disease and she has served as a reviewer for numerous international journals and grant agencies.

• University of Wisconsin – Madison, Department of Medicine, Madison, Wis.

Dr. Ozioma Okonkwo is a faculty member in the Department of Medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Okonkwo's research focuses on clarifying how alterations in the brain and other biomolecules (such as cerebrospinal fluid β-amyloid) place some cognitively normal individuals on a trajectory that culminates in probable Alzheimer’s disease. He is also interested in discovering new knowledge concerning the modulation of the link between brain changes and cognitive decline by both modifiable (e.g., physical exercise, cognitively stimulating activities) and non-modifiable (e.g., genetic vulnerability) factors.

• University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, Miami, Fla., Director, John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics and Executive Vice Chair, Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genetics

Dr. Pericak-Vance is Director of the John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics and Executive Vice Chair of the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Department of Human Genetics at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Board certified by the American Board of Medical Specialties in Medical Genetics, she is a founding fellow of the American College of Medical Genetics and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine. Her productivity in genetics research has resulted in more than 725 peer-reviewed papers (H-Index = 127, many in high-impact scientific journals). She was part of the team that discovered the effect of the common variant, the E4 allele of apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene, on Alzheimer disease risk. Dr. Pericak-Vance has also identified genetic risk factors for autism, age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, and multiple sclerosis. Many of Dr. Pericak-Vanceʹs efforts are directed towards addressing health disparities in genomics research including initiating the Genetic Awareness Project (GAP) to educate South Florida’s Black and Hispanic Communities about the value of genetics and its influence on personal health. She is an organizer of the nationally acclaimed ʺWhy We Canʹt Wait: Conference to Eliminate Health Disparities in Genomic Medicine.ʺ Additionally, she directs several related genetic research projects, one on Alzheimer disease in African Americans and a second on admixed Caribbean Hispanic and Amerindian populations. She is one of the principal investigators of "The Alzheimer Disease Sequence Analysis Collaborative" and she leads the Alzheimerʹs Sequencing Project Follow-up Study which is whole genome sequencing over 40,000 individuals from diverse populations. Dr. Pericak-Vance is the recipient of numerous awards, including the international ʺLouis Dʺ Scientific Prize from the Institut de Franceʹs Academie des Sciences for her Alzheimer’s disease research, the Bengt Winblad Lifetime Achievement Award from the Alzheimerʹs Association and the Snow and Ming Tsuang Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society of Psychiatric Genetics (ISPG) for her lifelong contribution to psychiatric disease research.

• University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pa., Head, Alzheimer ’s Disease Genetics Consortium, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

Dr. Schellenberg received his Ph.D. from the University of California - Riverside in 1978. Subsequently he was a Research Professor at the University of Washington. In 2008, he became a Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. His work focuses in the genetics of neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer’s, progressive supranuclear palsy, different forms of frontotemporal lobar degeneration and Guam amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/parkinsonism dementia complex. His career has focused on applying advanced genome technology to the problem of finding the underlying causes of human diseases.

Dr. Schellenberg founded the Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC), which is comprised of a group of investigators who are using genome-wide association analysis methods to identify Alzheimer’s disease genes. The ADGC has amassed clinical and genetic information on over 25,000 late-onset Alzheimer’s cases and 30,000 cognitively normal elderly subjects, and identified over 20 novel risk genes for this devastating disease. Dr. Schellenberg and colleagues are now participating in the Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project (ADSP) where genomic sequence is being generated for over 4,000 subjects. Dr. Schellenberg is analyzing these data for genetic changes that lead to Alzheimer’s disease with the eventual goal of identifying novel therapeutic targets.

• Fleni-CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the School of Exact and Natural Sciences, University of Buenos Aires.

Dr. Surace’s laboratory focuses on genetic and biomarker studies of neurodegenerative proteinopathies, including functional validation of novel genomic variants in hereditary cases of Alzheimer’s, frontotemporal dementia and amyotrpohic lateral sclerosis. Also, the laboratory investigates genetic and biological markers of Alzheimer’s in adults with Down syndrome.

• University of Kentucky, Lexington, Ky., Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and Department of Physiology

Donna M. Wilcock, Ph.D. is the Sweeney-Nelms Professor in Alzheimer’s Disease Research at the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and Professor in the Department of Physiology at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Wilcock received her B.S. in Pharmacology from Cardiff University. She obtained her Ph.D. at the University of South Florida, and completed postdoctoral training at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Duke University. Dr. Wilcock’s research is focused on vascular cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID), a common cause of dementia and frequent co-morbidity with Alzheimer’s pathology. She is performing translational research on VCID, ranging from studying molecular mechanisms through identification of novel biomarkers in patients. She is primarily focused on inflammatory and angiogenic processes, as well as studying the influence VCID has on the progression and severity of Alzheimer's. Her work is funded by the National Institute on Aging and the National Institute on Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

• Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas, Professor, Department of Molecular and Human Genetics and Director, Huffington Center on Aging

Dr. Zheng obtained her Ph.D. degree from Baylor College of Medicine in 1990. After a brief postdoctoral training at Baylor, she joined Merck & Co. where she began her research on Alzheimer’s disease, which continued after her return to Baylor in 1999. Dr. Zheng’s expertise is mouse genetics and she is a pioneer in utilizing sophisticated mouse models to probe the biology and pathophysiology of the amyloid precursor protein and presenilins. Dr. Zheng’s current research focuses on the investigation of the autophagy-lysosomal pathway and neuron-immune interaction in Alzheimer’s and related disorders.

Dr. Zheng has published over 100 papers. She is a recipient of the New Scholar Award from the Ellison Medical Foundation and the Zenith Award from the Alzheimer’s Association. She served on the Alzheimer’s Association Medical & Scientific Advisory Council from 2011 to 2018. Currently she is a member of the Tau Consortium Scientific Advisory Board and a co-Chair of the Scientific Review Committee of the BrightFocus Foundation.

• The University of Sydney,, Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience

Dr Holsinger’s research interests surround understanding molecular mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative diseases with a particular focus on Alzheimer’s disease and the -secretase cleaving enzyme (BACE1). This enzyme initiates the generation of amyloid-beta (A), accumulation of which leads to its deposition as amyloid plaques, a pathological feature of Alzheimer’s. Following seminal discoveries of increased BACE1 in the brain and cerebrospinal fluid of Alzheimer’s subjects, the laboratory focuses on identifying mechanisms that lead to increased levels of BACE1 and those that regulate its transcription. Dr. Holsinger’s research also focuses on neurotrophic factors, in particular brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and its expression in the diseased brain with an aim to regulating levels of these factors for therapeutic benefit. As part of this drive, Holsinger and colleagues employ techniques such as neuromodulation and piezoelectricity to regulate gene and protein expression in tissue and cells.