PhD Student in Parkinson's disease and multimodal neuroimaging. (Biomedical engineer)

Dr. Josephine Labus is a research group leader in the Department of Cellular Neurophysiology at Hannover Medical School. She graduated in biochemistry at the Free University Berlin and obtained her PhD at the Charité - Medical University in Berlin. Her current research focuses on the contribution of serotonergic signalling to protein aggregation in tauopathies and TDP-43-related neurodegenerative diseases.

Professor Frank LaFerla is the Dean of Biological Sciences and a Chancellor’s Professor in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior. He is the Director of the NIH-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and Co-Director of NIH-funded MODEL-AD. He previously served as Director of Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND) from 2008-2018. Professor LaFerla’s research focuses on understanding the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease, the most common form of dementia. His scholarly work has had a global influence on the field, as some of the models he has generated have been distributed to over 150+ researchers in more than 20 countries throughout the world; he has published over 250 original peer-reviewed articles and has been listed among the top 1% cited researchers in his field. He has received several honors for his research accomplishments including the Ruth Salta Junior Investigator Achievement Award from the American Health Assistance Foundation, Zenith Fellows Award from the Alzheimer’s Association, Distinguished Mid-Career Faculty Research Award, Promising Work Award from the Metropolitan Life Foundation for Medical Research, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor and was elected as a Fellow to the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Neurological Association.

Julien Lagarde is a clinical neurologist with sub-specialty in MCI, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, neuroimaging and biomarker research. In addition to a strong clinical experience in neurodegenerative diseases acquired in the Department of Neurology of Memory and Language, at Sainte-Anne hospital, Paris, headed by Pr Marie Sarazin, he developed an early interest for clinical research, which led him to complete an MSC degree in cognitive and behavioural neuroscience from Paris VI University. His research focus then moved to the study of biomarkers and pathophysiological processes in AD and related disorders, by using a multimodal approach combining clinical, biological and imaging methods in the framework of several protocols funded by the French National Research Agency or the French Ministry of Health and coordinated by Pr Sarazin. He completed his PhD on tau PET imaging in 2022. His work is part of a collaborative translational approach and aims at improving the in vivo diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases and finding new prognostic markers, as well as developing tools to assess the impact of new treatments in the perspective of precision medicine. This work was awarded the Joël Ménard prize in clinical and translational research of the french Alzheimer foundation in 2020.

Dr. James Lah graduated with honors from Duke University, and subsequently enrolled as a Medical Scientist Program Fellow at Ohio State University, where he earned his MD-PhD with a focus on Neurobiology and Cell Biology. After an internship in Medicine, Dr. Lah completed his Neurology Residency at Emory before joining the Emory Neurology faculty. Dr. Lah leads active basic and clinical research efforts. In his clinical work, he has developed a multidisciplinary team devoted to improving the care of patients with Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases. He is currently Associate Professor of Neurology at Emory University where he serves as Clinical Core Leader and Associate Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Director of the Cognitive Neurology Program, Principal Investigator of the Emory Healthy Brain Study, and Director of the statewide Georgia Memory Net. Dr. Lah has published over 180 peer-reviewed articles and has been awarded numerous research grants from NIH and other agencies. In 2009 Emory University appointed Dr. Lah to the Alice and Roy Richards Endowed Chair for Alzheimer’s Research, and he was proclaimed an Outstanding Georgia Citizen in 2019 by then-Secretary of State Robin Crittendon.

Dr Landau's research focuses on understanding the neurophysiological processes underlying cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. She is the principal investigator of POINTER Imaging study, which is examining the influence of multidomain lifestyle interventions on brain changes in at-risk older individuals across the U.S. She also oversees PET pipeline development and analysis in multisite longitudinal studies including the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), the ADNI Late Life Depression study, and the Standardized Centralized Alzheimer’s & Related Dementia Neuroimaging (SCAN) study.

Jaren Landen, Ph.D. is a clinical leader with over 20 years of global major pharmaceutical experience focused on developing new medicines for patients with unmet medical needs with a passion for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Jaren has extensive experience with clinical trial design leading all phases of clinical development strategy, regulatory interactions, publications, and business development. Jaren is currently the Head of the Early Alzheimer’s Disease group at Biogen where she provides clinical development expertise for all aspects of the AD portfolio. Jaren joined Biogen in 2017 after a 15-year career at Pfizer. While at Pfizer, Jaren worked in the neuroscience clinical development group spanning across indications including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s Disease, pain, and stroke. Jaren has run numerous clinical trials in all phases of clinical development with an emphasis on Alzheimer’s disease. Jaren did her academic training at Emory University in Neuroscience and teaches graduate Biotechnology at Northeastern University as an adjunct professor.

Dr Emma Lane is a Reader in Neuropharmacology at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK. After completing a PhD at King’s College London, London, UK and a postdoctoral research position at Lund University, Lund, Sweden, Dr Lane established her own independent group within the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2009. She focuses on modelling and understanding the side effects of current and novel therapeutic interventions for Parkinson’s disease in rodent models. Her work is providing an evidence base for optimising cell and gene therapies alongside concurrent pharmacotherapy. With an interest in public engagement and public involvement and as the lead for the BRAIN Involve PPI group, she leads the LEARN (Listening to the Experiences of pARticipants on Neurosurgical trials) study group. This team is implementing a series of mixed-methods studies to collate the participant experience of clinical trials of new complex interventions for neurodegenerative diseases. This knowledge will be used to inform the design of future trials, and delivery of therapies, to improve information for participants and their families, as well as trial processes and outcome measures.

A major scientific achievement was the detection of the “Swedish” mutation. This genetic mutation causes Alzheimer’s disease in a large family and leads to 3-5 times increased production of amyloid β (Aβ). Another major scientific breakthrough was the detection of the “Arctic” mutation, found in a family from northern Sweden. The pathogenic effect of the mutation was a propensity to generate soluble aggregated Aβ, protofibrils. These species of Aβ are toxic. This inspired me to target Aβ protofibrils with immunotherapy and we developed an antibody selective for Aβ protofibrils, mAb158. In 2003, I co-founded BioArctic, based on the discovery of the Arctic mutation. BioArctic has signed a long-term license agreement with Eisai Pharmaceuticals of Japan on the clinical development of lecanemab. Results from phase 3 came in September 2022, and primary and all key secondary end-points were being met. Selected Honors 2022 Bengt Winblad’s prize for increased understanding of the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease 2021 Rudbeck Medal for scientific discoveries, Uppsala University 2019 Khalid Iqbql Lifetime Achievement Award in Alzheimer’s Disease Research by Alzheimer’s Association 2019 Swedish Alzheimer’s Foundation (Alzheimerfonden) Grand Research Prize

Im a post doc at the Department of Biochemical Science “A. Rossi Fanelli” of Sapienza University of Rome. My research is currently focused on understanding the role of altered protein homeostasis in the development of Alzheimer-like neurodegeneration in order to propose a novel effective therapeutic approach to reduce cognitive decline. Currently my main projects comprises the role of the Unfolded protein response and the analysis of deregulated protein O-GlcNacylation in Down syndrome.