Rakez Kayed, PhD. is the John Sealy Distinguished Chair in Parkinson Disease Research, Professor at the Departments of Neurology and Neuroscience & Cell Biology & Anatomy, and a member of George & Cynthia Mitchell Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases a at University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston Texas. He received his Ph. D in Medicinal Chemistry from University of Tubingen and Post-Doctoral training in Alzheimer’s disease and Protein Misfolding Diseases at the University of California-Irvine and joined the faculty at UTMB in 2007, The research in his laboratory focuses on amyloid aggregates and toxic oligomers formed by disease-associated proteins tau, α-synuclein, amyloid-β and others. His lab studies the formation, biochemically, biophysical, and immunologically characterization, toxicity and spreading of biologically active oligomeric polymorphs/strains and their potential role in the disease pathogenesis. He pioneered the development of oligomer specific antibodies and many reagents and methodologies that are being used extensively to studying protein aggregation and mechanisms of toxicity. The ultimate research goals are developing detection assays discriminating between amyloid aggregates and therapeutic strategies tailored against oligomeric strains. Dr. Kayed has exceptionally vibrant track record for engaging in cutting-edge amyloid research, coauthored more than 145 peer-reviewed articles with more than 31,000 citations.