MD-MPH-Ph.D. Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran School of Rehabilitation

Kazuto Yamashita is a researcher of diagnostic field in Central Research Laboratories, Sysmex Corporation (Kobe, Japan). The company provides diagnostic instruments, reagents and related software all over the world. He got B.S. and M.S. from Department of Chemistry, Kobe University. After he joined Sysmex Corporation (2016 –), he focused on protein chemistry, especially for the aggregation of proteins, and assay development using fully automated immunoassay system. Currently, he is working on the development of new reagents aiming for a blood-based diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

I am a graduate student in the Neuroscience and Public Policy program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. My research centers on elucidating brain changes that occur prior to the onset of dementia due to Alzheimer's disease using neuroimaging, fluid, and other biomarkers. I am also working on ways to ethically engage communities that are currently underrepresented in Alzheimer's disease research.

Dr. Shieh-Yueh Yang finished PhD program of Physics at National Taiwan Normal University in 1999. In 2003, he served as an assistant professor at Institute of Electro-optical Science and Technology, National Taiwan Normal University. He promoted to be an associate professor in 2007. His academic interests included design, synthesis, and characterization of magnetic particles for bio-applications, and published more than 180 SCI papers. He quitted the faculty position and started up MagQu Co., Ltd. in 2008. One of the main products is the assay system for neurodegenerative biomarkers in human plasma. Dr. Yang received the 2020 Carl H. Rosner Entrepreneurship Award issued by IEEE Council on Superconductivity.

I am involved in the investigation of different aspects of microglial activation in neurodegenerative diseases, especially how the microglia communicate and manipulate other cells in the central nervous system (CNS) and periphery. The value of my work will provide candidates of biomarkers for early diagnostic purposes and pharmacological targets to prevent the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

I am interested in unveiling the regulation of microglia phenotypes in the brain, as a way to understand how our brains react to aging, neurodegeneration and altered environments. Currently, I am investigating the regulating pathways of microglia under Alzheimer's disease to understand the alterations of microglia physiology and Abeta pathology in diseases, which may lead to novel therapeutic approaches.

Dr. You is Research Fellow of Department of Neuroscience at Mayo Clinic Florida. Dr. You obtained his B.S. from Beijing Forest University with major in Biological sciences and honors in 2012 and his Ph.D. from Peking University with major in Neurogenetics in 2017. His thesis mentor was Dr. Dai Zhang, an internationally recognized neurogeneticist specialized in schizophrenia. Under the mentorship of Dr. Zhang, he completed his thesis work on “Genetic and neurobiological mechanisms underlying psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and autism”, which demonstrated a novel role of calcium channel gene CACNA1A and chromatin remodeling gene EZH2 in the genetic etiology of autism in Chinese Han population. These works are already published in two PLoS One and Neuroscience letter as co-first author. Dr. You joined the laboratory at the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, Boston University School of Medicine led by Dr. Tsuneya Ikezu as a postdoc in September 2017 and moved with Dr. Ikezu from Boston University to Mayo Clinic Florida in April 2021. He has been investigating the molecular mechanism of Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis using various transgenic and gene-targeted mouse models, and stem cells. His research work was highlighted by the several poster presentations at the prestigious conferences or seminars, such as FENS-CNS Young Researchers Exchange Support Programme in France 2016, Society For Neuroscience meeting in San Diego 2018, and Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Los Angeles 2019, AD/PD meeting in 2021, International Society of Extracellular Vesicles Conference in 2021. His work has been currently published in the first-rated journals, such as Journal of Extracellular Vesicles, Neurobiology of Disease, Molecular Psychiatry, Alzheimer’s Dementia, and Cell Reports.

Dr. Hong Yu is an elected Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics. She has joined the Department of Computer Science of the University of Massachusetts at Lowell (UMass-Lowell) as a tenured professor since January of 2018. Before joining UMass-Lowell, she was a tenured full professor in the Department of Population and Quantitative Health Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She obtained PhD in Biomedical Informatics from Columbia University. She is an internationally known expert in biomedical and health data science and has served two terms on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Biomedical Informatics. She has chaired or co-chaired several leading computer science and biomedical informatics conferences. She is the Principal Investigator in multiple NIH, NSF, HSR&D and other grants and has authored over 200 peered-reviewed publications in leading computer science and biomedical informatics journals and conference proceedings.

Dr. Hui Jing Yu joins Vaxxinity, formerly United Neuroscience, as a Medical Director leading clinical vaccine programs focusing in neurodegenerative and chronic diseases. Dr. Yu has over 10 years of experience in neuroscience research with involvement in a wide variety of neurological indications including Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. She joins Vaxxinity from Axovant Sciences, where she was overseeing the design, implementation, and execution of clinical trials in Lewy body dementia. Prior to that Hui Jing a Medical Imaging and Biomarker Scientist at Bioclinica. She received her B. Eng., M. Sc., and PhD degrees from the Stony Brook University and performed significant academic research in radiology, neurology, and neurophysiology. Hui Jing's neuroscience foundations and aptitude for applying imaging and biomarkers to early-stage neurology clinical trials are highly valuable to the development of Vaxxinity’s pipeline.