Targeting Metals in Alzheimer's and Other Neurodegenerative Diseases

Speakers

Organizers

Rudolph Tanzi, PhD

Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Dr. Rudolph Tanzi is the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, and Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Dr. Tanzi has been investigating the genetics of neurological disease since the 1980's when he participated in the first study that to use genetic markers to find a disease gene (Huntington's disease). Dr. Tanzi co-discovered the three familial early-onset Alzheimer's disease (FAD) genes and several other neurological disease genes including that responsible for Wilson's disease. As leader of the Cure Alzheimer's Fund Alzheimer's Genome Project, Dr. Tanzi has carried out multiple genome wide association studies of thousands of Alzheimer's families leading to the identification of novel AD candidate genes, and the first two rare mutations causing late-onset AD in the ADAM10 gene. His research on the role of zinc and copper in AD has led recently to successful clinical trials at Prana Biotechnology. Dr. Tanzi serves on dozens of editorial and scientific advisory boards, and as Chair of the Cure Alzheimer's Fund Research Consortium. He has received numerous awards, including the two highest awards for Alzheimer's disease research: The Metropolitan Life Award and The Potamkin Prize. Dr. Tanzi was included on the list of the "Harvard 100 Most Influential Alumni" by 02138 magazine, and was chosen by the Geoffrey Beene Foundation as a "Rock Star of Science". Dr. Tanzi has co-authored over 400 research articles, including three of the top ten most cited AD papers. He co-authored the popular trade books "Decoding Darkness: The Search for the Genetic Causes of Alzheimer's Disease" (with Ann Parson) and the recent New York Times Bestseller, "Super Brain" (with Deepak Chopra). In musical pursuits, Dr. Tanzi professionally plays keyboards, most recently on Aerosmith's new album released in November, 2012.

George Zavoico, PhD

MLV & Co.

George B. Zavoico, PhD, is Managing Director, Research, and a Senior Equity Research Analyst at MLV, a boutique investment bank and institutional broker-dealer based in New York. He has over 6 years of experience as a life sciences analyst writing research on publicly traded equities. Prior to MLV, he was an equity analyst with Westport Capital Markets and Cantor Fitzgerald. Prior to working as an analyst, Dr Zavoico established his own consulting company serving the biotech and pharmaceutical industries by providing competitive intelligence and marketing research, due diligence services, and guidance in regulatory affairs. He also wrote extensively on healthcare and the biotech and pharmaceutical industries for periodicals targeting the general public and industry executives. Dr Zavoico began his career as a Senior Research Scientist at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., moving on to management positions at Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and T Cell Sciences, Inc. (now Celldex Therapeutics, Inc.). He has a BS in Biology from St. Lawrence University and PhD in Physiology from the University of Virginia and has held post-doctoral positions at the University of Connecticut Health Sciences Center and Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School.

Jennifer Henry, PhD

The New York Academy of Sciences

Speakers

Robert A. Cherny, PhD

The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, Australia

Associate Professor Robert Cherny is a Principal Research Fellow in the Oxidation Biology Laboratory at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, The University of Melbourne, Australia. He has published extensively on the neurobiology of metals and its relevance to neuodegenerative disease with a particular interest in translational medicine. He is also Head of Research for Prana Biotechnology Ltd, a pharmaceutical company based in Melbourne specialising in the development of novel drugs for neurodegenerative diseases.

Steven M. Hersch, MD, PhD

Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Dr. Hersch directs the New England Center of Excellence for Huntington's Disease and the, Laboratory of Neurodegeneration and Neurotherapeutics at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research areas have included the synaptic organization and molecular pharmacology of the cerebral cortex and basal ganglia and basic, translational, and clinical research related to Huntington Disease. His laboratory studies the pathogenesis of HD, with a focus on identifying and validating potential neuroprotective treatments and biomarkers using genetic HD mouse models and human clinical and postmortem samples. Dr. Hersch has been a principal investigator, steering committee member, or site investigator for many observational and therapeutic studies in HD patients. He is the principal investigator of the first prevention trial in presymptomatic HD and of a global phase III study examining high dose creatine in early symptomatic HD. He is leading a collaborative NIH supported program to develop neuroimaging, protein, small molecule, and genomic biomarkers of HD. He is the co-chair of the Huntington Study Group, an international consortium of academic investigators at almost 100 leading institutions devoted to HD clinical research.

Rudolph Tanzi, PhD

Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Dr. Rudolph Tanzi is the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, and Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Dr. Tanzi has been investigating the genetics of neurological disease since the 1980's when he participated in the first study that to use genetic markers to find a disease gene (Huntington's disease). Dr. Tanzi co-discovered the three familial early-onset Alzheimer's disease (FAD) genes and several other neurological disease genes including that responsible for Wilson's disease. As leader of the Cure Alzheimer's Fund Alzheimer's Genome Project, Dr. Tanzi has carried out multiple genome wide association studies of thousands of Alzheimer's families leading to the identification of novel AD candidate genes, and the first two rare mutations causing late-onset AD in the ADAM10 gene. His research on the role of zinc and copper in AD has led recently to successful clinical trials at Prana Biotechnology. Dr. Tanzi serves on dozens of editorial and scientific advisory boards, and as Chair of the Cure Alzheimer's Fund Research Consortium. He has received numerous awards, including the two highest awards for Alzheimer's disease research: The Metropolitan Life Award and The Potamkin Prize. Dr. Tanzi was included on the list of the "Harvard 100 Most Influential Alumni" by 02138 magazine, and was chosen by the Geoffrey Beene Foundation as a "Rock Star of Science". Dr. Tanzi has co-authored over 400 research articles, including three of the top ten most cited AD papers. He co-authored the popular trade books "Decoding Darkness: The Search for the Genetic Causes of Alzheimer's Disease" (with Ann Parson) and the recent New York Times Bestseller, "Super Brain" (with Deepak Chopra). In musical pursuits, Dr. Tanzi professionally plays keyboards, most recently on Aerosmith's new album released in November, 2012.

Dan Tardiff, PhD

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research

After growing up in southern Maine, I attended Stonehill College — a small liberal arts college in Massachusetts. There, I earned my BS in Biochemistry and began my research career in C. elegans. I next attended Brandeis University in the Molecular and Cell Biology PhD program in the lab of Dr. Michael Rosbash, a pioneer in the study of both basic gene expression work in yeast and Circadian rhythms in fruit flies. My work involved new applications of chromatin immunoprecipitation to study cotranscriptional pre-mRNA splicing in budding yeast. In addition, I developed an in vivo crosslinking approach to affinity purify large, labile complexes that typically do not survive affinity purification (e.g., nascent RNA Pol/RNA/DNA complexes). I continued my work with yeast in my post-doc with Dr. Susan Lindquist at the Whitehead Institute in Cambridge, MA. I have worked on several yeast models that recapitulate the basic protein misfolding problems associated with Parkinson's disease, ALS, FTLD, and Alzheimer's Disease. Most of my efforts have focused on high throughput screens for small molecules that rescue the cell death associated with toxic expression of disease proteins. Upon 'hit' identification, I have interrogated several compounds to elucidate their mechanism of action, a difficult task that we are currently making some exciting headway using both yeast genetic screens and other conventional target identification approaches.