Victor Velculescu

Biography
Dr. Velculescu led the first genome wide sequence analysis in human cancers, identifying key genes and pathways dysregulated in tumorigenesis. He developed methods for global gene expression analyses and coined the word transcriptome" to describe the patterns that could now be obtained in cancer and other cells. These analyses identified a variety of genes not previously known to be involved in neoplasia, including PIK3CA as one of the most highly mutated genes in human cancer. His team's discoveries have led to new FDA approved therapies against PI3K and IDH1, and diagnostic tests for comprehensive tumor profiling. More recently, his group has created noninvasive machine learning liquid biopsy approaches for early detection and monitoring of cancer patients. His work has provided new paradigms for understanding human cancer that have benefited patients worldwide. He has been a Founder and CoCEO of Personal Genome Diagnostics and is Founder and CEO of Delfi Diagnostics.

David Holtzman

Biography
David Holtzman is one of the defining figures in Alzheimer’s disease research. His work established key foundations of the disease biology that now underpin biomarker-driven detection and therapeutic development, including the role of apolipoprotein E in amyloid-beta metabolism and in tau-mediated neurodegeneration, the role of the innate and adaptive immune response in neurodegeneration, and the influence of the sleep-wake cycle on amyloid accumulation and tau-mediated injury. His laboratory helped drive the development and validation of cerebrospinal fluid and plasma biomarkers that detect Alzheimer’s pathology years before symptoms emerge, directly enabling the earlier, biology-based clinical trial strategies now shaping the field. His contributions to tau biology and neurodegeneration further clarified the sequence linking amyloid, tau, and neuronal loss. A member of the National Academy of Medicine and former President of the American Neurological Association, Holtzman has translated decades of mechanistic discovery into the scientific framework for Alzheimer’s prevention and treatment. His career helped define the scientific basis for precision neurology in neurodegenerative disease.

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Talk
Chair a session on Blood biomarkers for Alzheimer's Disease
From Blood Test to Treatment - Are We Finally Diagnosing Alzheimer's Early Enough

Li-Huei Tsai

Biography
Professor Li-Huei Tsai is the Picower Professor of Neuroscience at the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and a member of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She pioneered the use of non-invasive sensory stimulation to treat Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders. Tsai is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, a Member of the National Academy of Medicine, an Academician of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan, and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She is a recipient of the Mika Salpeter Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 Hans Wigzell Research Foundation Science Prize for her research on Alzheimer’s disease, and 2025 Distinguished Lecturer for Parkinson’s Disease Research, Helis Medical Research Foundations. In 2022 she was named a Visiting Professor of the Vallee Foundation.

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Talk
Sensory Gamma Stimulation in Neuroprotection/Treating Alzheimer’s
Gamma oscillations (30–80 Hz) support cognition and are disrupted in Alzheimer’s disease. We developed GENUS, delivering 40 Hz light and sound, which increases gamma power, reduces pathology, and improves cognition in mouse models. GENUS also alters glia and vasculature, enhancing glymphatic clearance via cholinergic and neuropeptide signaling underlying neuroprotection mechanisms.

David Holtzman

Biography
David Holtzman is one of the defining figures in Alzheimer’s disease research. His work established key foundations of the disease biology that now underpin biomarker-driven detection and therapeutic development, including the role of apolipoprotein E in amyloid-beta metabolism and in tau-mediated neurodegeneration, the role of the innate and adaptive immune response in neurodegeneration, and the influence of the sleep-wake cycle on amyloid accumulation and tau-mediated injury. His laboratory helped drive the development and validation of cerebrospinal fluid and plasma biomarkers that detect Alzheimer’s pathology years before symptoms emerge, directly enabling the earlier, biology-based clinical trial strategies now shaping the field. His contributions to tau biology and neurodegeneration further clarified the sequence linking amyloid, tau, and neuronal loss. A member of the National Academy of Medicine and former President of the American Neurological Association, Holtzman has translated decades of mechanistic discovery into the scientific framework for Alzheimer’s prevention and treatment. His career helped define the scientific basis for precision neurology in neurodegenerative disease.

AI and Data Sciences Showcase:
Onymos

Henrik Zetterberg

Biography
Henrik Zetterberg is a Professor of Neurochemistry in the UW Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin, the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and University College London, UK. He is also a Clinical Chemist at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden. He is Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry at the University of Gothenburg, and leads the UK DRI Fluid Biomarker Laboratory at UCL. His main research focus and clinical interest are fluid biomarkers for brain diseases, neurodegenerative diseases in particular. He has published more than 2800 scientific articles and received many awards.

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Talk
25 years of research: Biofluid-based biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases
The talk covers recently developed CSF and blood biomarkers for neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer's in particular, but important differential diagnoses and co-pathologies too.

David Liebeskind

Biography
David S. Liebeskind, MD, FAHA, FAAN is Professor of Neurology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) where he serves as the Associate Neurology Director of the UCLA Stroke Center and the Neurology Director of the Stroke Imaging Program. He is Co-Director of the UCLA Cerebral Blood Flow Laboratory and Director of the UCLA Vascular Neurology Residency Program.He trained in chemical engineering at Columbia University and completed his MD at New York University School of Medicine. Postgraduate medical training included internship at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston and neurology residency at UCLA. After his residency, he completed a fellowship in stroke and cerebrovascular disease at UCLA and subsequently joined the faculty in the Departments of Neurology and Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania.He has maintained extensive clinical activity across a broad range of cerebrovascular disorders ranging from carotid disease to unusual causes of stroke. Clinical expertise includes cerebral venous thrombosis, arterial dissection, moyamoya syndrome and other causes of stroke in the young. His principal research interests include novel neuroimaging approaches to elucidate fundamental pathophysiologic correlates of cerebrovascular disease in humans with a particular focus on the collateral circulation. His work on collateral perfusion in acute ischemic stroke draws on advances in noninvasive, multimodal CT and MRI and detailed analyses of digital subtraction angiography. He directs an angiography and imaging core laboratory that has participated in central readings of MERCI, Multi MERCI, IMS-III, TREVO EU and TREVO 2. His research on collaterals in intracranial atherosclerosis complements his work on acute stroke, utilizing computational fluid dynamic modeling and estimates of fractionalflow to predict risk of ischemia and reperfusion hemorrhage.

Henrik Zetterberg

Biography

Patrick Brannelly

Biography
Patrick Brannelly has over 20 years of experience building groundbreaking neuroscience initiatives. Most recently, he was a member of the Health & Life Sciences team at Gates Ventures, where he served as Director of Partnerships & Business Development for the nonprofit Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative. Prior to this, he was Managing Director of the Rainwater Charitable Foundation’s Tau Consortium, which seeks to accelerate the development of new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia. Earlier in his career, Pat was co-founder and CEO of NeoCORTA and Director of Partnerships & Group Programs at Posit Science, both early-stage brain health technology ventures. He also served as a management consultant in the U.S. and Europe across the pharmaceutical, energy, and technology sectors. He currently serves as a Board member and Treasurer for Stroke Onward and Harvard Alumni in Healthcare, and is a former Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at California State University, Fresno.

Sheena Aurora

Biography
Dr. Sheena Aurora is vice president, Medical Affairs, for the Alzheimer's Association. She works to translate research into clinical practice and gather feedback from clinical practice/health systems and individuals impacted by dementia to help the Association more effectively implement risk reduction strategies, diagnosis, treatments and care models. Dr. Aurora works closely with the Mission Engagement and Health Systems teams to ensure the development of the most robust tools and resources for health systems, clinicians and payers to ensure they are offering the most appropriate and safest access to patients. Dr. Aurora's previous positions include vice president of medical affairs at C2N Diagnostics and vice president, medical affairs at Impel Neuropharma. Prior to that, she was a medical fellow and launch leader at Eli Lilly.

Thomas C. Südhof

Biography
Thomas Christian Südhof is a neuroscientist whose work has focused on how neurons communicate with each other at synapses. Südhof’s postdoctoral work with Drs. Mike Brown and Joe Goldstein at UT Southwestern in Dallas, TX, examined cholesterol metabolism, but he switched his research focus to neuroscience to study synapses when he started his own laboratory in 1986. Here, Südhof’s research initially studied how a presynaptic neuron rapidly secretes neurotransmitters, which initiates synaptic transmission. This work revealed a general mechanism of regulated secretion which was honored by a Nobel Prize in 2013 shared with Jim Rothman and Randy Scheckman. More recently, Südhof’s studies focused on how synapses in brain are formed and shaped, resulting in the identification of trans-neuronal signaling networks that control synaptic connections. Moreover, Südhof’s work addressed how these synaptic connections become impaired in schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease, with the hope of gaining access to possible new therapeutic avenues.

Allan Levey

Biography
Dr. Levey is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Neurology and founding director of the Goizueta Brain Health Institute and Goizueta Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Emory University. Dr. Levey is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Neurology and founding director of the Goizueta Brain Health Institute and Goizueta Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Emory University. He has led several NIH translational research consortia focused on precision medicine for Alzheimer’s disease and related neurodegenerative disorders, including programs in the Accelerating Medicine Partnership for AD and one of two national Drug Discovery Centers for AD (TREAT-AD), contributing to pioneering proteomics research that has discovered novel therapeutic targets and biomarkers, now in clinical translation. He is recipient of numerous awards including from the American Neurological Association, Alzheimer’s Association, National Parkinson’s Foundation, Huntington’s Disease Society of America, and he is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the Association of American Physicians.

Randall Bateman

Biography
Randall J. Bateman, MD, the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Distinguished Professor of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, will receive the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award in Alzheimer’s Disease Therapeutic Research. Bateman has been chosen to receive the honor for his groundbreaking work in Alzheimer’s research, including the development of plasma biomarkers in Alzheimer’s diagnostics. He will receive the award in October at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease conference in Boston. Bateman and his team investigate the causes of Alzheimer’s and develop diagnostic measures to help detect the disease before symptoms begin. His team has developed blood tests that are at least 95% accurate at identifying people with Alzheimer’s. He is the director of the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN), where his research has identified a cascade of events and symptoms that could be used to diagnose Alzheimer’s before the onset of symptoms. He is also director of the DIAN Trials Unit, a clinical trials platform that has advanced drug therapeutics to target prevention and progression of the disease. Bateman also co-founded C2N Diagnostics, a biotechnology company that is active in therapeutic and diagnostic developments in neurodegenerative diseases; C2N developed a blood test for Alzheimer’s that is available to doctors and patients.

Lynn Kramer

Biography
Dr. Kramer, who has been with Eisai since 2007, started as the Executive Vice President of Global Clinical Research, and was soon promoted to the additional role of Chief Operating Officer of Eisai Medical Research. In early 2009, he was named President of the Scientific and Operational Clinical Support Core Function Unit (SOCS CFU) and President of the Neuroscience, Product Creation Unit. He was also named Chief Clinical Officer and a member of the Executive Committee, Eisai Company, Ltd. in 2012. In these roles, Dr. Kramer has been responsible for all functions including regulatory, biostatistics, data management, medical writing, clinical functions and clinical pharmacology, and modeling and simulations. During this time, he has overseen the development and regulatory approval of several new molecular entities. Earlier in his career, Dr. Kramer held senior positions in drug development including serving as Vice President Clinical Research and Head of the Therapeutic Area Strategy Team at Novartis, and Vice President Clinical Research at the R.W. Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute. Prior to his industry career he was Co-PI of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) sponsored epilepsy-focused program project in Los Angeles, California Dr. Kramer is a Fellow of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (1987) and the Philadelphia College of Physicians (1987). He previously served as the industry representative on the Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and on the Board of Directors at American Society for Experimental Neuro Therapeutics (ASENT). He currently is a member of the Pharma R&D Leadership Forum. In 2022, he became the 12th recipient of the 2022 Epilepsy Foundation’s Lifetime Accelerator Award. Dr. Kramer received his M.D. from Hahnemann Medical College. He completed his internship in internal medicine at the University of California at Irvine, and his residency in neurology at the University of Virginia.

Diane Chan

Biography
Diane Chan, MD, Ph.D. (MGH/MIT). Diane is a new Assistant in Neurology at MGH. She earned her M.D.- Ph.D. degrees at Boston University with a focus on Parkinson’s disease for her Ph.D. research. She completed her medical training in Neurology at Yale New Haven Hospital where she was the recipient of the Gilbert Glaser Award and a R25 NINDS Research Fellowship from the NIH. She completed a fellowship at MGH and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2019. She is now seeing patients in the FTD Unit in Memory Disorders and Comprehensive Neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital while concurrently conducting post-doctoral research at MIT in Li-Huei Tsai’s laboratory to translate two different non-invasive brain stimulation technologies for the potential treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease into human use. She is currently matriculated in the Harvard Catalyst Clinical and Translational Research Academy at Harvard Medical School.

Leslie Shaw

Biography
Dr. Shaw is professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and interim director of the clinical chemistry laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania hospital and school of medicine in Philadelphia. One of his primary scientific contributions has come in the area of Alzheimer’s disease biomarker research. He developed the Alzheimer’s disease neuroimaging initiative (ADNI), which is one of the world’s largest public-private research partnerships, with more than $140 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health, pharmaceutical companies, and foundations. He currently co-directs the federally funded ADNI biomarker core laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the Parkinson’s progression markers initiative. He has also been a pioneer in therapeutic drug monitoring. He established a toxicology and therapeutic drug monitoring laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania and participated in several international consensus panels devoted to defining best practices. He has served as president of the International Association of Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology, served on the NCCLS committee on toxicology and drug monitoring, and was the lead editor for the first edition of the text, The Clinical Toxicology Laboratory: Contemporary Practice of Poisoning Evaluation. He has also been active in service, chairing the scientific and technical affairs committee and serving on the board of directors of the National Academy of Clinical Biochemistry. He has chaired the the Association for Diagnostics & Laboratory Medicine’s (formerly AACC) Therapeutic Drug Monitoring and Clinical Toxicology Division. Dr. Shaw has served on the boards of editors of Clinical Chemistry, Therapeutic Drug Monitoring, and Clinical Biochemistry. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles on a wide variety of topics.

Suma Babu

Biography

Kejal Kantarci

Biography
The research of Kejal Kantarci, M.D., is in the field of neuroimaging in aging and dementia. Advances in imaging technology over the last few decades have given us the tools to track the normal and pathologic aging of the brain. Dr. Kantarci's research aims to bring these advanced imaging modalities into clinical practice. The goal of Dr. Kantarci's research program is to apply advanced imaging technology in order to detect the evolution of dementia pathologies before they cause irreversible damage to the brain. She aims to develop valid imaging tools to detect the earliest dementia-related changes in the brain, which could allow for early intervention and prevention of dementia. Dr. Kantarci's research program has been funded since 2003 by the National Institutes of Health, Alzheimer's Association and American Federation for Aging Research.

Prashanthi Vemuri

Biography
Dr. Vemuri is a Professor in the Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic Rochester and an imaging researcher in the population based sample of Mayo Clinic Study of Aging. She has a broad background in engineering and clinical neuroscience, with specific training and expertise in imaging of neurodegenerative disorders. Her areas of research are 1) Investigating mechanisms through which protective and risk factors influence AD imaging biomarkers and outcomes and 2) Developing and validating imaging-based biomarkers to improve the understanding and management of Alzheimer's disease and cerebrovascular disease. Dr. Vemuri has over 170 peer-reviewed journal articles and numerous conference abstracts and book chapters to her credit. Her research work is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIA and NINDS). She also leads MRI cores for large multi-center clinical studies on stroke (DISCOVERY) and Alzheimer’s disease (LEADS and US POINTER). She is the Chair of a large international professional area interest group on Reserve, Resilience, and Protective Factors and serves on several national and international committees including NIH study sections in her research area. Dr. Vemuri is recipient of the NIH K99/R00 Pathway to Independence grant from the NIA and was awarded the 2020 de Leon Prize in Neuroimaging in the Senior Scientist category.

Mark Bear

Biography
Dr. Mark Bear is the Picower Professor of Neuroscience in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory and the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1994 to 2015, and served as Director of the Picower Institute from 2007 to 2009. Prior to moving to MIT in 2003, Dr. Bear was the Sidney A. and Dorothy Doctors Fox Professor at Brown University School of Medicine for 17 years. After receiving his B.S. degree from Duke University, he earned his Ph.D. degree in neurobiology at Brown. He took postdoctoral training from Wolf Singer at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt, Germany, and from Leon Cooper at Brown. His long-standing scientific interest is in how the brain is modified by experience, and his lab is currently focused on applying knowledge of the elementary mechanisms of synaptic plasticity to overcome genetic or environmental adversity. Professor Bear has a deep commitment to mentorship of PhD students and postdocs. At MIT, he currently serves as the Brain and Cognitive Sciences Department Faculty Postdoctoral Officer and as a member of the Junior Faculty Mentorship Committee. He is also a member of the MIT Faculty Postdoc Advisory Committee. Professor Bear has proudly mentored over 20 predoctoral and 25 postdoctoral trainees, and many of them are now distinguished independent investigators.

Thomas C. Südhof

Biography
Thomas Christian Südhof is a neuroscientist whose work has focused on how neurons communicate with each other at synapses. Südhof’s postdoctoral work with Drs. Mike Brown and Joe Goldstein at UT Southwestern in Dallas, TX, examined cholesterol metabolism, but he switched his research focus to neuroscience to study synapses when he started his own laboratory in 1986. Here, Südhof’s research initially studied how a presynaptic neuron rapidly secretes neurotransmitters, which initiates synaptic transmission. This work revealed a general mechanism of regulated secretion which was honored by a Nobel Prize in 2013 shared with Jim Rothman and Randy Scheckman. More recently, Südhof’s studies focused on how synapses in brain are formed and shaped, resulting in the identification of trans-neuronal signaling networks that control synaptic connections. Moreover, Südhof’s work addressed how these synaptic connections become impaired in schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease, with the hope of gaining access to possible new therapeutic avenues.

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Talk
Progress towards Alzheimer's disease drug targets
Alzheimer's disease causes the most prevalent dementia in our aging populations, but poorly understood mechanistically. Here, I will argue that synaptic impairments likely inititiate Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis and therefore need to be urgently understood for development of new treatments for this devastating disorder.