Dr. Oguz Akbilgic is a biomedical informaticist focusing on both methodology and healthcare applications of artificial intelligence and statistics. He earned his dotcoral degree from Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey in Quantitative Methods and carried out postdoctoral studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA and University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada. He worked at University of Tennessee Health Science Center, Memphis, TN and Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL as a biomedical informatics before joining Wake Forest School of Medicine. Currently, he is working at Wake Forest as an Associate Professor jointly at the Cardiology Section and Biomedical Informatics Center. He is also serving as an Associate Director for Epidemiological Cardiology Research Center (EPICARE). He has authored over 100 publications including two book chapters.

A postdoctoral Research Fellow at UTHealth Science Center at Houston, with a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. My PhD dissertation work concentrated on unraveling the mechanistic link between oxidative stress and insulin resistance in the liver. During my first postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at UTMB, I worked on identifying placental barrier transporters involved in pravastatin trans-placental transport and their expression in healthy and preeclamptic placentas. After that I moved to Neurology Department where I worked on passive immunotherapy targeting tau oligomeric strains in aged transgenic animals of tauopathy. Currently, I am focusing on protein misfolding disorders, particularly Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and Diabetes. I was awarded the Alzheimer’s Association Research Fellowship to investigate the role of tau in peripheral insulin signaling in an attempt to understand the mechanistic link between AD and peripheral insulin resistance.

John Alam is President and CEO of EIP Pharma, and is on the board of directors for Alliance for Aging Research (Washington DC). Until May 2014, he was therapeutic area head for diseases of aging within Sanofi R&D. In that role he led on a global basis R&D activity at Sanofi directed at Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, as well as number of other age-related diseases. Previously, from 1997 until 2008 he held positions of increasingly responsibility at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, including Chief Medical Officer and EVP, Medicines Development. At Vertex, he played major roles in the development of novel innovative medicines for HIV, Hepatitis C and Cystic Fibrosis. And, from 1991 to 1997, while at Biogen, Inc, he led the clinical development of Avonex (interferon beta-1a). John received a S.B. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a M.D. from Northwestern University School of Medicine. Subsequently, he completed an internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a post-doctoral fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Mark W. Albers is a neurologist specializing in memory and olfactory disorders. At Mass General he sees patients in the Memory Disorders Clinic and attends on the inpatient neurologic wards. His clinical research is focused on developing sensitive probes of olfactory function as a biomarker for early neurodegenerative disease, including Alzheimer’s and TBI, and COVID. His laboratory research focuses on elucidating the mechanisms of neurodegenera-tion, identifying novel drug targets that mediate neurodegeneration, and developing therapies to prevent neurodegeneration. He is the overall PI of the NADALS trial, the first basket trial in neurodegenerative disease. The drug repurposing, baricitinib, will be tested in patient popula-tions with either Alzheimer’s disease or ALS in this trial. He served as a member of the Trans-lational Neuroscience committee of the American Academy of Neurology, is a faculty member of the Harvard Program in Therapeutic Science, the Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology, the Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science, and the McCance Center for Brain Health. He is the Associate Director of the Massachusetts Center for Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Science.

I am a post-doctoral research associate working in Cruchaga's Lab at the Washington University in St. Louis, MO, USA. My research work is focused on genetic analysis of neurological disorders e.g. Alzheimer's disease.

I am working as a CIHR-Banting Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Calgary (UofC) and was formerly a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Gyeongsang National University (GNU), South Korea. My research is focused on exploring novel/potential therapeutic targets and developing translational therapeutic strategies for the treatment of incurable misfolded protein and age-related neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and prion diseases, as well as other brain diseases that trigger cognitive impairments e.g., stroke and brain injuries. Over my career, I have authored 37 (16 as a principal & 21 as a co-author) peer-reviewed articles in high-quality journals, one editorial, two special issues, and one E-Book, and presented my work at over 15 seminars/conferences. My work has been cited 2057 times, receiving an h-index of 22 and an i10-index of 30 (Google scholar). My professional career has included a Lectureship and Assistant Professorship for undergraduates and teaching assistantship, mentorship, and co-supervision for both undergraduates/graduates and junior PDF.

Dr. Daniel L. Alkon, also known as Dan, M.D., was Founding Scientific Director of Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute (now known as CRE) from 1999 to September 23, 2016. Dr. Alkon is also the Co-Founder of Synaptogenix (formerly Neurotrope Bioscience, Inc.) since August 23, 2013. Dr. Alkon now serves as President and Chief Scientific Officer at Synaptogenix, Inc. Synaptogenix is a clinical-stage biotech company leveraging Bryostatin-1 and its analogues to discover and develop targeted, novel regenerative therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases and developmental disorders. He began his career in biomedical research. During his 30-year career at NIH, he became a Medical Director in the U.S. Public Health Service at the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Strokes (NINDS) and Chief of the Laboratory of Adaptive Systems. As an internationally recognized pioneer in research on brain-based neural networks and the molecular basis of memory, he has authored hundreds of scientific articles as well as several books including Memory Traces in the Brain by Cambridge University Press and the popular book Memory’s Voice by Harper Collins. He serves as a Director of Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute. He served as a Director of Neurotrope Bioscience, Inc. After earning his M.D. at Cornell University and finishing an Internship in Medicine at the Mt Sinai Hospital in New York, he joined the staff of the National Institutes of Health. From June 2006 to September 23, 2016, he was the Toyota Chair in Neurodegenerative Disease Research for Distinguished Research at the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute (BRNI). From October 2000 to September 28, 2016, Dr. Alkon was also a Professor at CRE and a Professor of Neurology at West Virginia University. Dr. Alkon received his Undergraduate Degree in Chemistry in 1965 at the University of Pennsylvania, where, with Post-Graduate studies in Physical Chemistry.

Highly curious, driven and enthusiastic scientist, who demonstrates passion and creativity towards the neuroscience research, namely neurodegenerative diseases. My rigour and attention to scientific detail have achieved me an excellent reputation with clients and collaborators. Deeply involved in several challenging pharmaceutical projects from early target validation, project start until late stage pre-clinical (behaviour, biomarkers, disease models) related to neurodegenerative diseases. Having a quite extensive experience in vitro assays to screen new drugs and in vivo / ex vivo trials to examine whether these drug candidates have strong therapeutic potential and scientific merit to justify further development to clinical trials in neurodegenerative diseases. Known as a patient and friendly leader, educating people, and a true team player, furthering project success.

Ph.D. (Pharmacy) University of Barcelona, Spain. Almost twenty-five years in the field of Biological Mass Spectrometry, fourteen of them dedicated to research in Alzheimer´s Disease by HPLC and MS (MALDI, IMS-MS, Orbitrap-MS, reTOF-MS, TOF/TOF-MS, Ion-Trap-MS and Triple Quadrupole-MS). Applications of both, targeted and untargeted, proteomic techniques in the fields of immunology, metabolism, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics. Applications of High-Mass MALDI Mass Spectrometry for the analysis of protein complexes and vaccines. Label-free shotgun proteomics by Travelling Wave Ion Mobility Spectrometry coupled to TOF-MS. Applications of MS to the study of amyloid species in tissues and biofluids, including human, dog and transgenic mice models. Research focus: blood and cerebrospinal fluid amyloid biomarkers in Alzheimer´s Disease. Direct analysis of amyloid peptides in blood without immunoprecipitation enrichment.

Cláudia Guimas de Almeida, Ph.D. in Neurosciences (2007) in the Gunnar Gouras lab (Weill Medical College of Cornell University; USA). Cláudia was an EMBO and a Marie Curie Post-doc fellow in Cell biology (2007-2012) at the Institut Curie (France) in Daniel Louvard lab. Cláudia has been a principal investigator of the Neuronal Trafficking in Aging lab at CEDOC, the Chronic Research Center at NOVA Medical School (NMS) in Lisbon since 2013, supported by the Portuguese Science Foundation (FCT). At CEDOC-NMS, Cláudia is co-coordinator of the Biomedical Research master program (NBR), the scientific Coordinator Microscopy facility; a member of NMS Scientific Council. Cláudia has 19 publications (>4000 citations) on intracellular trafficking mechanisms in healthy and Alzheimer's disease cells. Her group has discovered the cellular mechanisms whereby two top genetic risk factors, Bin1 and CD2AP, may contribute to amyloid endocytic production in late-onset Alzheimer's disease (EMBO reports, JBC), and whereby normal aging potentiates amyloid production, which may to aging-dependent synaptic decline (Journal of Cell Science). Her group is investigating the mechanisms of synaptic decline in aging and late-onset Alzheimer's disease to identify novel therapeutic targets to delay or treat Alzheimer's disease.

2002-2008: Studies of Human Biology/Biomedical Science at Philipps University Marburg, Germany (Diploma with main subjects ‘infection‘ and ‘cell biology‘) with internships at Med. Univ. Vienna (AT) and UC San Francisco (USA). 2009-2013: Dissertation project on proteolytic processing, prion protein biology and neurodegeneration at the Institute of Neuropathology, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf ('Dr. rer. nat.' degree in 2013, Univ. Hamburg, Germany); 2013-2016: PostDoc; and subsequently Research Group Leader at aforementioned institution. Besides various other aspects of prion protein biology, our research focusses on how endogenous proteolytic processing events on key proteins impact on neurodegenerative diseases such as rare and transmissible prion diseases (e.g. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) or Alzheimer`s disease, the most frequent cause of dementia.

I have training in biochemistry and obtained a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology. I have expertise in neurobiology and neurodegenerative diseases. Since my doctoral work, I became interested in the molecular mechanisms involved in neurodegenerative diseases. In my Thesis, I characterized the effect of Acetylcholinesterase promoting the Aβ peptide aggregation. In my post-doctorate, I studied the signal transduction pathways involved in neuronal cytoskeleton alterations, tau phosphorylation, and neuronal death in Alzheimer's disease (AD). In the last years, I have been actively conducting research focused on understanding the role of c-Abl tyrosine kinase signaling in Neurodegenerative diseases. Our work has shown that c-Abl is activated in both in vitro and in vivo AD models and mediates neuronal death, tau phosphorylation, and cognitive impairments. Also, we demonstrated that AβO binds to Ephrin receptor A4 causing c-Abl activation and the downstream synaptic loss, LTP blockade, and gene repression of synaptic genes. Our recent results support the role of dysregulated c-Abl signaling in neurons damage and seizures induction in temporal lobe epilepsy. I have formed several undergraduate students, Ph. D. students, and post-doctorates, so I have experience in human resources training.