Costantino Iadecola, M.D. is the Director and Chair of the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute and the Anne Parrish Titzell Professor of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medicine. His research focuses on the basic mechanisms of neurovascular function and on the cellular and molecular alterations underlying ischemic brain injury, neurodegeneration and other conditions associated with cognitive impairment. A pioneer in establishing the concept of neurovascular unit, Dr. Iadecola has championed the involvement of neurovascular dysfunction in neurodegenerative diseases, and the role of innate immunity and the microbiome in ischemic brain injury. He has been involved, as editor or editorial board member, in several journals including J Neurosci, Annals of Neurology, Circulation research, Hypertension and Stroke. Dr. Iadecola has received two Javits Awards from the NIH, the Willis Award-the highest honor in stroke research bestowed by the American Heart Association (AHA), the Zenith Fellow Award from the Alzheimer’s Association, and the Excellence Award in Hypertension Research from the AHA. A member of the Association of American Physicians, he was elected Distinguished Scientist by the AHA and in 2021 received the Basic Research Prize from the AHA. Since 2018 Clarivate Analytics has listed Dr. Iadecola as one of world’s “Highly Cited Researchers” for ranking in the top 1% of the most-cited authors in neuroscience and behavioral science. In 2022, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism.

Assistant Professor, Seiko Ikezu, M.D., is Associate Consultant II at the Department of Neuroscience in the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. She graduated from Gunma University School of Medicine in Japan and took a position as research assistant professor at Boston University before moving to Mayo clinic. Dr. Ikezu’s research focuses on the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease and autism spectrum disorders, with special interest in the role of microglia in disease spread and neuronal development. She published her work about the beneficial effect of microglial depletion on suppressing tau propagation in animal model of Alzheimer’s disease and microglial repopulation in behavioral outcome of maternal immune activation mouse model. Her main goal is to establish microglia-specific delivery of antisense oligonucleotide or recombinant lentivirus to target tau spread. Her another therapeutic target is tau-tubulin kinase 1 (TTBK1), the central nervous system-specific tau kinase, which enhances tau phosphorylation in the entorhinal cortex where early tau pathology evolves. She has recently published the paper which aimed for understanding the effect of targeting TTBK1 on tau pathology development in PS19 tauopathy mouse model using antisense oligonucleotide.

Tsuneya Ikezu, M.D., Ph.D., focuses on neuroimmune cell-mediated regulations of neuronal function, neurogenesis, neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. Dr. Ikezu is particularly interested in how the innate immune-related cells, extracellular vehicles (EVs) and molecules in the central nervous system influence the pathology and progression of select neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia.

Dr. Ole Isacson (MD-PhD) is Professor of Neurology (Neuroscience) at Harvard Medical School and the founding director of the Neuroregeneration Research Institute at McLean Hospital (MGB). After completion of his MD-PhD and research at University of Lund, Sweden, and a post-doctoral fellowship at University of Cambridge, UK, Dr Isacson was recruited as faculty to Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, Dept of Neurology, and McLean Hospital to establish an independent laboratory. Prof. Isacson’s laboratory has elucidated biological processes, mechanisms and treatments of neuronal vulnerability in several neurodegenerative diseases. To reverse the effects of brain cell death, his work has pioneered and patented new biotechnologies for restorative treatments using molecular, gene therapy and cell replacement methods, including stem cell derived patient derived neurons. The dual goals of his work are to prevent brain degeneration in PD/AD related pathologies; and repair any irreversible brain damage by micro-restoration of new neurons and glia in the brain. Fundamentally, he and his collaborators have found lysosomal and lipid function to be defective in Parkinson’s disease cells and tissues. New research in his laboratory have shown how to resolve lipid-induced problems in PD and dementia pre-clinical animal models and elucidated the interactions between neurons and glia in lipid pathologies. In addition, he and his team have provided discoveries, models and insights on the nexus of inflammatory reactions and neurodegenerative diseases. Prof. Isacson is Principal Faculty of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, since it was founded in 2005. He served as a member of the Michael J. Fox Foundation Executive Scientific Advisory Board (2014-2016). He has received several international prizes, research awards and lectureships, including The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences: The Lindahl Investigator Award, and the Bernard Sanberg Memorial Prize for Brain Repair. Prof. Isacson served as the President of the International Cell Transplant Society (TTS), (2007-2008). In addition to his academic work, he served as a US government federal advisory committee member for the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) (2014-2016) and the CSO of Pfizer’s Neuroscience Division (2016-2017). He is the author or co-author of ~ 400 scientific research articles and 3 books in his field. He was the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience from 2010-2016. Prof. Isacson was elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2013.

Gil Issachar is a biomedical engineer and neuroscientist who currently serves as the CTO of Firefly Neuroscience. Gil played a key role in securing Firefly Neuroscience's FDA clearance for their groundbreaking Brain Network Analytics (BNATM) platform. BNATM leverages AI and an unprecedentedly large and diverse normative database of electrophysiological and behavioral data to provide objective evaluations of brain function. Gil has also led collaborations with big pharmaceutical companies, clinicians, and neuroscientists to investigate various CNS treatment effects and potential EEG-based biomarkers for different contexts of use such as diagnosis, patient selection, predicting, and monitoring treatment effects. Through his research work, he has published multiple academic papers. Formerly, Gil contributed to the development and FDA clearance (PMA) of a real-time cancer detection technology for Dune Medical Devices. Gil holds a master's degree in biomedical engineering from Tel Aviv University, specializing in signal processing, machine learning, and neuroscience. As a part of his master's thesis, he designed and developed an innovative EEG-based system for evaluating and treating various neuropsychiatric disorders. Gil has an extensive background in leading teams, AI research, EEG analysis, and programming. He is passionate about understanding the brain and improving brain health. Gil and his team have received recognition for their work, including being named a finalist in the Roche and Start-up Nation Central's 'Alzheimer Challenge' (2022) and winning the Erickson Foundation Award for Excellence in Aging Research at the 2018 APHA annual meeting.

Takeshi Iwatsubo is a Professor of Neuropathology at the Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo. He also serves as the Director of the National Institute of Neuroscience, National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, and the Chairman of the Japan Society for Dementia Research. Trained as a neurologist and neuropathologist, Iwatsubo has contributed to the studies of human neurodegenerative disorders, especially Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, using multidisciplinary approaches. He demonstrated that Abeta42 is the initially deposited species in senile plaque amyloid, elucidated the process of gamma-secretase complex formation and identified phoshorylated alpha-synuclein as a component of Lewy bodies. He has been the Principal Investigator of the Japanese AD Neuroimaging Initiative (J-ADNI) and currently serves as the PI of the Japanese Trial Ready Cohort for Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease (J-TRC). Recently, he served as a member of the data analysis team of Clarity AD clinical trial of an anti-amyloid antibody drug lecanemab, contributing to the development of disease-modifying therapies of AD.