Dr. Henry Querfurth, M.D. Ph.D., Professor of Neurology, Tufts University School of Medicine, is currently in full time practice at Tufts Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts. Medical and Doctorate in Neuroscience degrees were obtained at the University of Rochester, N.Y. He completed residences in both Internal Medicine and Neurology at the University of Washington, Seattle, and is a diplomate of both ABIM and ABPN. Thereafter, he completed post-doctoral research and clinical fellowship training in Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory/Neurodegenerative disorders at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Prior to his current position at TMC, he co-directed AD and Memory Disorder clinics at Rhode Island Hospital, Brown University, RI and Beth Israel Hospital, Harvard Medical School. His basic research interests include the molecular pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s Disease and Inclusion Body Myositis, both characterized by intracellular accumulations of misfolded proteins and toxicity to key signaling, metabolic/energy, cell cycle and homeostatic pathways. A special interest in insulin pathway resistance has led to a search for corrective small molecules. He has held principal site-investigator roles in several large phase-3 anti-amyloid and tau trials. His laboratory has been funded by grants from the NIH-NINDS and NIA, Alzheimer’s Association and several Foundations.

Frances-Catherine Quevenco is an accomplished neuroscientist with a passion for enabling dementia patients to access timely and accurate diagnoses to receive the proper care they need. Frances did her BSc at University College London, followed by an MSc at Imperial College London before joining the National University of Singapore as a Cognitive Neuroscientist. After 2 years of research at NUS, she joined Prof. Roger Nitsch’s group at the University of Zurich, dedicating her PhD and Postdoc to exploring preclinical Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers to enable earlier detection of the disease when an intervention is most effective. She has since then broadened her field of expertise, working as the Senior Global Medical Affairs Lead for Neuroscience at Roche Diagnostics to establish the value of a timely biomarker-based diagnosis in Alzheimer’s disease before joining Altoida as part of the Medical team. In parallel, she is also a strong advocate of advancing research into sex- and gender-specific differences in brain and mental disease. In her spare time, when she is not geeking out on neuro-related topics, she can be found going for runs in obscure places or trying out new recipes on family and friends.

TR Johns Professor of Neurology, University of Virginia. Specialist in epilepsy, sleep, and clinical neurophysiology. I represent a team at UVA working on chronic care issues, including sleep, in patients with dementia and their caregivers.

Heberto Quintero, Ph.D., conducts his research in Dr. Adriana Di Polo’s laboratory at the University of Montreal Hospital Research Center (CRCHUM). He obtained his Ph.D. in Neuropharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at the Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV, Mexico City) His long-term research interests involve finding new molecular mechanisms triggering neuronal death and vision loss, along with developing novel therapeutic strategies for neuroprotection and regeneration in glaucoma and other retinopathies. The central focus of his current projects is to elucidate the mechanisms underlying impaired axonal transport, one of the earliest pathological features in degenerating retinal ganglion cells. More specifically, he investigates the role of traffic proteins in mitochondrial transport inside RGCs’ axons using in-vivo two-photon imaging in preclinical models of glaucoma.

Dr. Qureshi is a neuroscientist trained at Columbia University, New York. His research focuses on the molecular pathways and genetic variations that contribute to Alzheimer’s disease’s pathology. He is investigating novel pathological pathways to identify potential therapeutic targets, and exploit them using drug and genetic interventions to achieve clinical remission of AD. Dr. Qureshi is using mouse models of endosomal/retromer dysfunction and AAV viral vectors as biological and therapeutic tools for altering levels of different retromer complex proteins in the brain in an attempt to improve trafficking through the endosomal system. He is further exploring the role of retromer in physiological / pathological processing of proteins and its downstream effects on Alzheimer disease progression, hippocampal plasticity and memory formation. In a recent report he has demonstrated that neuronal specific endosomal deficits can result in misprocessing of amyloid precursor protein and degradation of glutamate receptors in neurons; in addition to this the endosomal dysfunction in neurons leads to astrocytic activation and an AD like dystrophic morphology of hippocampal microglia. Dr. Qureshi is developing gene therapy programs around different components of the endosomal trafficking machinery and working closely on this with a new biotechnology company, Retromer Therapeutics.