James E. Galvin, M.D., M.P.H. is Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. He is Founding Director of the Comprehensive Center for Brain Health, Director and Principal Investigator of the Lewy Body Dementia Research Center of Excellence, and Chief of Cognitive Neurology for Palm Beach and Broward County leading brain health and neurodegenerative disease research and clinical programs. Dr. Galvin has authored over 280 scientific publications, 25 book chapters, and 3 textbooks on healthy brain aging, cognitive health, Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy Body dementia, and related disorders. Dr. Galvin’s research has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, Alzheimer’s Association, Michael J Fox Foundation, Missouri, New York, and Florida Departments of Health, and numerous Private and Family Foundations.

Dr. Jie Gao is an Assistant Professor in Department of Neuroscience at The Ohio State University (OSU). His laboratory is dedicated to the study of the neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer's disease (AD). His research seeks to elucidate the molecular and cellular mechanisms regulating amyloid aggregation and glial responses in neurodegenerative diseases. Prior to joining OSU, Dr. Gao received his PhD training at University of Pittsburgh, and his post-doctoral training at University of California Los Angeles. As a trained molecular biologist, Dr. Gao is fully committed to advance our understanding of AD, develop new disease-modifying therapies for AD, and make a difference for individuals suffering from this devastating disease.

I hold a BSc in Physics from Sorbonne University in Paris. Then, after graduating in 2020, I enrolled in a MSc in Management and Analysis of Big Data in Miguel de Cervantes European University. It was during my MSc internship period that I started working in Ace Alzheimer Center Barcelona studying subjective cognitive decline, one of the earliest noticeable symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. The studies were carried out with diverse techniques of machine learning and that was when I realised that I would like to use new technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence to improve the field of diagnosis and treatment in the healthcare system. Currently I am working as a bioinformatician at Ace and I am studying for an MSc in Artificial Intelligence in International University of La Rioja.

My major interest lies in understanding neuron-glia crosstalk and the (patho)physiological mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration in a diseased state.

Dr. Maria Garofalo obtained her Bachelor’s Degree in Biotechnology in 2015 with a thesis entitled “Study of gene expression regulation in Food Addiction” carried out at the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry of the University of Teramo. In 2018, she obtained her Master’s Degree in Molecular Biology and Genetics (University of Pavia) with a thesis entitled “Whole transcriptome analysis in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Patients” carried out at the Genomic and post Genomic Center of IRCCS Mondino Foundation. Dr. Maria Garofalo obtained her PhD in Genetics, Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Pavia in 2021. Her work, carried out at IRCCS Mondino Foundation, focused on the effect of subcellular localization of SOD1 on the transcriptome of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) patients. Moreover, she focused her attention on the peculiarity of deregulated transcripts in different neurodegenerative diseases, such as Frontotemporal Dementia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, and ALS.

Dr. Rodolfo G. Gatto is a Research Fellow at the Department of Neurology in Mayo Clinic at Rochester, working under the supervision of Drs. Keith Josephs and Jennifer Whitwell. He holds an MD degree from the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay. His initial medical research experience started as a Visiting Research Scientist in the Departments of Neurosurgery and Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He was later employed at the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center as a Research Scientist in the R&D Division. After earning his Ph.D.in Biomedical Engineering and Bioimaging at UIC, he completed postdoctoral training at the Departments of Anatomy and Molecular Cell Biology & Biomedical Engineering where he performed extensive work in preclinical models of neurodegenerative diseases, combining bioimaging methods, as well as different diffusion MRI techniques. His current research involves the study of early neuroimaging biomarkers of histopathology in neurodegenerative diseases. His current study aims to link histopathological molecular markers and imaging techniques, particularly utilizing connectomics and structural brain networks. Collectively, the results from his studies attempt to demonstrate the applicability of novel multi-imaging technologies and computational approaches that could accelerate the discovery of treatments for these diseases.

Hugo Geerts is Head Neuroscience Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP) at Certara. His studies included a physics degree, a Biophysics PhD, a Bachelor Degree in Medicine, a Master in Pharmaceutical Sciences, and a Pharma Executive MBA. He worked for 17 years with Dr. Paul Janssen, the greatest drug hunter in history at the Janssen Research Foundation heading the Alzheimer Discovery research. He identified galantamine (Razadyne-Reminyl) for inlicensing and supported its successful clinical development in Alzheimer’s disease. In 2002, he co-founded In Silico Biosciences to provide mechanistic disease modeling services in CNS R&D (notably schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. He joined Certara-SimCyp in 2020 to build out a comprehensive neuroscience QSP platform by combining advanced Physiology-Based PharmacoKinetic modeling with mechanism-based disease modeling. His passion is to get better drugs faster to the right patients by using translational computer modeling & simulation.

Dr. Meiyu Geng is currently a professor and Principal Investigator of Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr. Geng has played a leading role in the development of the first-in-class anti-AD treatment GV-971, conditional approved in China in 2019 and got formal approval in 2020 from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its international multi-center Phase III clinical study in the U.S. Her research area also includes the discovery and development of molecularly targeted cancer therapies. Dr. Geng led the development of over ten targeted therapies in the area of receptor tyrosine kinases and epigenetics, including 8 in clinical trial in China. In parallel to anticancer drug discovery, her team is engaged in biomarker discovery to guide personalized cancer therapy and mechanism-based combination therapies. Dr. Geng received her Ph.D. degree from Tokyo University, Japan. Dr. Geng has published more than 240 research articles in peer-review journals including Cell, Cancer Cell, Cell Res, J Natl Cancer Inst, Hepatology, Nat Commun, Cancer Res etc. She is the co-inventor of more than 200 domestic or international patents. Dr. Geng is the recipient of a number of prestigious national awards including “National Award for Technological Invention”, “Outstanding Academic Leader of Shanghai”, China Guanghua Engineering Science and Technology Award and WuJieping-Paul Janssen Medical & Pharmaceutical Award. She is recognized as an expert with significant contributions by the Chinese Academy of Sciences.