Dr. Eberling received her PhD from the University of California at Berkeley and did her post-doctoral training in PET imaging at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Prior to joining the Michael J. Fox Foundation in 2009, she did research using PET imaging to study Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease and was involved in the development and translation of gene therapy approaches for Parkinson’s disease using AADC PET imaging as a readout for therapeutic response to AAV-AADC gene therapy first in primate studies and then in a Phase 1 clinical trial. She also worked on the preclinical development of AAV-GDNF gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease. At the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF), Dr. Eberling has been involved in a number of different programs over the years. She led the cognition program including the first and only Phase 1 therapeutic trial sponsored by MJFF for PD-MCI. Most notably, Dr. Eberling has overseen the PET imaging program since 2009 and launched the Foundation’s dedicated effort to developing a selective alpha-synuclein PET tracer in 2010. Since that time, MJFF has funded tens of millions of dollars toward this effort and in 2016 Dr. Eberling announced a 2 million dollar prize to the first group to develop a selective alpha-synuclein PET tracer. Although the prize has yet to be awarded much progress has been made and MJFF hopes to award the prize in the near future. Dr. Eberling is now the head of the Research Resources Department which includes imaging (PET and MRI), laboratory tools (reagents and antibodies), data, biospecimens , and open access publications. She continues to lead the PET tracer development program with a focus on the development of novel PET tracers for a variety of different pathological and therapeutic targets.

Melissa is a final year PhD student at Curtin Medical School, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia. In 2016 Melissa graduated from a Bachelor of Science (Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology), receiving the Fisher Biotech award for the top graduating student, and was awarded Vice Chancellor’s Listing (top 1% of students). Melissa then completed an Honours degree in Biomedical Science in 2017, graduating at the top of her class with First Class Honours. Melissa subsequently began a PhD project, investigating the role of presenilin homologues in β-amyloid metabolism in 2018 in the Verdile-Groth laboratory, receiving a prestigious Dementia Australia Research Foundation scholarship to complete her studies. Melissa is submitting her thesis mid-2023 and is looking for post-doctral opportunities.

Dr. Chris Edgar has an extensive background in drug development and clinical trials methodology and is an expert in the development, validation, and application of clinical outcome assessments (COAs). Dr. Edgar has held positions as scientific director at Cognitive Drug Research, senior clinical lead at Bracket/UBC, principal scientist at Roche, and is currently Chief Science Officer at Cogstate. Dr. Edgar has worked across all phases of clinical development and in multiple therapy areas, specializing in neuroscience, cognition and performance-based outcome (PerfO) assessments.

I’m a PhD Candidate at the University of California, Berkeley co-advised by Prof. Daniela Kaufer at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and Prof. Lea Grinberg at UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center. I explore why the human brain is vulnerable to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. I study vulnerability and resilience using model-based and translational approaches by considering how evolutionary and life history factors drive an organism into and along neurodegenerative disease spectra. Through these approaches, I pursue research on pathophysiology, biomarkers and therapeutics, and evolutionary medicine. www.ajehrenberg.com

Dr. Eitan is the Chief Scientific Officer and founding scientist of NeuroDex, a startup biotechnology company committed to developing diagnostic tests for diverse neurological conditions. Dr. Eitan is a neuroscientist with experience in neuron-derived extracellular vesicles, with over 30 publications in peer-reviewed journals. He did his postdoctoral research at the National Institute on Aging (NIA), where he was among the first to study extracellular vesicles. Dr. Eitan published work on the role of extracellular vesicles in the prion-like propagation of amyloid beta and Alpha-synuclein. He also was part of the team that first utilized immunoaffinity isolation of extracellular vesicles from the blood as a biomarker platform for neurodegenerative diseases. Currently, as chief scientific officer at NeuroDex, Dr. Eitan is working on validating extracellular vesicle-based blood tests for neurodegenerative diseases, making them ready for clinical use.

I have been working with Alzheimer’s research in Drosophila since 2018 and I am now a PhD student in Brorsson’s group. Ann- Christin Brorsson is an associate Professor in molecular biotechnology. Brorsson has a strong background in working with the Aß peptide, its role in Alzheimer’s disease and the use of Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism to study protein misfolding diseases. Initially, I worked with a new Drosophila model of AD, based on the generation of Aß peptides by AßPP processing. Later, after a few setbacks in drug screens using a neuronal-based driver, we started to contemplate: What if the drug doesn’t cross the brain barrier and therefore never reach the target site? This could explain the negative results in drug screening that previously been received by me and presumably other reseachers. Therefore, I changed my approach and started to design an AD Drosophila model where the target proteins are expressed in the fly’s intestine.

Andreja Emeršič, European Specialist in Laboratory Medicine (EUSpLM), is a deputy head of the Laboratory for CSF diagnostics at the Department of Neurology, University Medical Centre Ljubljana. Her research interests are focused on cerebrospinal fluid and other fluid biomarkers of neurodegenerative and demyelinating diseases. She is a PhD student in the Interdisciplinary Doctoral Programme Biomedicine, in the field of Clinical Biochemistry and Laboratory Biomedicine at the University of Ljubljana.

Joshua Emmerson is an up-and-coming first-generation Canadian neuroscientist with a multidisciplinary background in animal physiology, pharmacology and neuroscience. Upon completion of his PhD he will be a first author of over 6 primary research papers and a co-author on over 10 publications. His work focuses on the characterization of transgenic animal models and experimental therapeutics of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, particularly the contributions of tau.