Gene Network Changes in Alzheimer's Disease: Potential Points for Therapeutic Intervention

Speakers

Organizers

Sean Pintchovski, PhD

Lundbeck Research USA

Dr. Pintchovski earned a BS with Honors from the California Institute of Technology and a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of California, San Francisco. His graduate work at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease/UCSF focused on understanding the regulation of neuronal gene expression underlying memory and cognition. After then completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Elan Pharmaceuticals, where he worked to further elucidate key biochemical processes that contribute to cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease, Dr. Pintchovski joined the Neuroinflammation Department at Lundbeck Research USA in early 2010. At Lundbeck his efforts have centered on applying a range of powerful techniques, including ex vivo FACS and whole genome expression profiling, to uncover how dysregulation of the innate and adaptive immune systems contributes to the pathogenesis of various neurodegenerative and psychiatric conditions. Dr. Pintchovski is driven by the desire to translate fundamental discoveries into novel therapeutic approaches that will address the medical and social challenges posed by these devastating diseases.

Cynthia Duggan, PhD

The New York Academy of Sciences

Jennifer Henry, PhD

The New York Academy of Sciences

Speakers

Kwame O. Affram, MBChB

Uniformed Services University

Kwame Ofori Affram graduated with an MBChB degree (MD equivalent) from the University of Ghana Medical School in Accra, Ghana in 2004. He performed his internship in Pediatrics and Surgery at the University affiliated Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital for one year and then continued as a Medical Officer in the same hospital. In 2006 Dr. Affram returned to the University of Ghana Medical School as a teaching assistant in human anatomy and concurrently worked towards an MPhil degree in anatomy which he obtained in 2008. He attended an IBRO School in Teaching Tools for Neuroanatomy in Senegal also in 2008. In 2010 Dr.Affram was accepted into the Graduate Neuroscience Program of the Uniformed Services University, Bethesda, MD and is currently working towards his PhD investigating the regulation of neuroinflammation in the laboratory of Dr. Aviva Symes.

Erik H.W.G.M. Boddeke, PhD

University Medical Center Groningen

Erik Boddeke is professor of Medical Physiology/ Neurophysiology at the department of Neuroscience at the University of Groningen/UMCG, The Netherlands. He finished his PhD thesis at the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Amsterdam. During 1988-1996 he was the laboratory head and group leader Neuro-immunology at Sandoz, in Basle Switzerland. From 1996-1998 he was Vice Head of the Department of Neuro-genetics at Novartis Research in Basle Switzerland. In 1998 he became Professor of Physiology at the Medical Physiology department at the UMC in Groningen (UMCG). As from 1998 till today he is professor of Physiology and Head at the Department of Neuroscience at the UMCG and professor of Medical Biology at the department of Molecular Neuroscience at the faculty of Sciences at the University of Groningen and. He also is director of the Research School BCN. Erik Boddeke’s work is focused on glia, neuroimmunology and ageing and on neural stem cells.

Oleg Butovsky, PhD

Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Dr. Butovsky’s major scientific interest is to understand the biology of resident microglia and peripheral inflammatory monocytes in homeostasis and neurodegenerative conditions. During his PhD studies at the Weizmann Institute of Science, he investigated the role of microglial cells in regulating the Ab plaque deposition in AD models, identified subpopulations of microglia and demonstrated how microglia can be both beneficial or detrimental in the context of neurodegeneration. His recently published work has identified a unique microglial signature in both mice and humans and is elucidating the relationship of microglia to CNS diseases including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), multiple sclerosis (MS) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). With the new knowledge gained, he hopes to address fundamental questions of microglial biology and apply this knowledge towards the development of novel microglia-targeting therapies. His work was recognized by the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Association, National Multiple Sclerosis Society and he received the Translational Research Advancing Therapies award and Transformative Research Awards grant from the NIH Director’s Office to provide a new understanding of the function of microglia and macrophages in healthy aging and new therapeutic targets to treat AD, ALS and MS by targeting these unique cell populations.

Philip L. De Jager, MD, PhD

Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital

Philip L. De Jager, MD, PhD is the Steven R. and Kathleen P. Haley Distinguished Chair for the Neurosciences at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital and is an associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. He is the director for basic and translational research at the Institute for the Neurosciences at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital and is an associate member of the Broad Institute of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He continues to practice clinical neurology, seeing patients within the Partners Multiple Sclerosis Center that is affiliated with the Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In 2008, Philip received the prestigious Harry Weaver Neuroscience Scholar Award from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. His work focuses on understanding the genomic, epigenomic, and neuroimmunologic architecture of neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and aging-related cognitive decline. Philip received his BS (summa cum laude) in molecular biophysics & biochemistry and in French literature from Yale University. He received his PhD in neurogenetics from The Rockefeller University and his MD from Cornell University Medical College. He also completed an MMSc program in clinical investigation at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Finally, he completed subspecialty training in neuroimmunology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and in human genetics at the Broad Institute.

Joseph El Khoury, MD

Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Joseph El Khoury is an Infectious Disease physician with an active clinical practice at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. After completing postdoctoral studies at Columbia University in New York and at MGH and Harvard Medical School he went on to become a faculty member at Harvard Medical School in 2002. He is the principal investigator for the laboratory for Innate Immunity and Neuroimmunology at the center for Immunology and Inflammatory diseases at MGH. Dr. El Khoury is an expert neuroimmunologist who has dedicated a substantial part of his career to the study of microglia, the innate immune cells of the brain with a focus on the role on these cells in aging and Alzheimer’s disease and is the author of several seminal papers and book chapters in the field. His research is currently supported by several grants from the National Institutes of Health where he also serves as a grant reviewer.

Miriam Merad, MD, PhD

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Miriam Merad, MD, PhD is a Professor of Oncological science, Medicine (Hem/Onc division) and Immunology and a Member of the Immunology Institute and The Tisch Cancer Institute at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Dr. Merad obtained her MD at the University of Algiers, Algeria. She did her residency in Hematology and Oncology in Paris, France and obtained her PhD in immunology in collaboration between Stanford University and University of Paris VII. She was recruited to Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 2004 and was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor with Tenure in 2007 and to Full Professor in 2010 and obtained an endowed Professorship in 2014. In 2010 Dr. Merad became the program leader of the Cancer immunology immunotherapy group at The Tisch Cancer Institute and the director of the Human Immunomonitoring center. Dr. Merad also serves as the Associate Director for the MD PhD program at Mount Sinai Medical School. Dr. Merad’s laboratory studies the mechanisms that regulate the development and function of the mononuclear phagocyte lineage including dendritic cells and macrophages. Her laboratory has extensively studied the mechanisms that control dendritic cells and macrophage homeostasis in different tissues including the brain. Dr. Merad has also made seminal discoveries in microglial biology revealing their embryonic origin and their local maintenance in situ. Dr. Merad’s belongs to the Immgen consortia to help decipher the transcriptional regulation of the tissue dendritic cell and macrophage lineage. Currently, one of the major goals of her laboratory is to identify the contribution of phagocytes to disease outcome including cancer and microbial immunity. Dr. Merad has authored more than 100 primary papers and reviews in high profile journal and obtained extensive NIH funding for her studies on dendritic cells and macrophage biology in mice and humans.

Michael C. Oldham, PhD

University of California, San Francisco

Michael C. Oldham, PhD is a neuroscientist and UCSF Sandler Fellow in The Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Oldham's lab studies the organization of the human brain transcriptome as a window unto neurobiological cellular complexity and identity in health and disease. As a graduate student in Dan Geschwind's laboratory at UCLA, he performed the first gene coexpression analysis of microarray data from human brain samples. This work demonstrated that cell type-specific information can be recovered from brain tissue without isolating homogeneous populations of cells and provided an initial description of the transcriptional programs that distinguish the major cell classes of the human brain. During a brief postdoc in Steve Horvath's laboratory at UCLA, he developed software to streamline processing of large gene expression datasets. After only a few months in this position, Dr. Oldham was unanimously selected as the 17th UCSF Sandler Fellow and provided with funding and space to start his own lab. As a Principal Investigator, Dr. Oldham continues to develop and apply new methods to refine the cellular and molecular taxonomy of the nervous system in health and disease on the basis of gene expression.

Vishal Sahni, PhD

Eisai Inc.

Dr. Vishal Sahni is a Senior Scientist in Eisai Inc.’s Translational Neurogenomics Group, located in Andover, Massachusetts. His work focuses on functional neurogenomics analyses to catalyse drug discovery from human genetics. Prior to relocating to the US, he was leading CNS discovery projects from Target validation up to Candidate Selection at Eisai Ltd, Hatfield, UK. He holds a PhD in Developmental Neurobiology from University College London, where he studied the generation and transdifferentiation of glial-biased stem cells from peripheral nerves. He also holds a Masters degree from Imperial College London and a BSc degree from King’s College London, both focused on developmental and clinical Neuroscience.

Bin Zhang, PhD

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Dr. Bin Zhang is an associate professor of the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences and a member of the Icahn Institute of Genomics and Multiscale Biology, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA. Prior to his appointment at Mount Sinai, he was a Principal Scientist and Group Leader of Sage Bionetworks, a non-profit research organization started in 2009 that grew out of a decade of intense well-funded work at Rosetta Inpharmatics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Merck & Co. Before he joined Sage, he worked at Merck & Co. first as a senior research scientist from and then as a Research Fellow. Prior to joining Merck & Co., he was a post-doctoral fellow and then a Research Faculty and Senior Biostatistician at David Geffen Medical School of University of California at Los Angeles. He holds a Ph.D. and a master degree in Computer Science from the State University of New York at Buffalo, a master degree in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Tongji University, Shanghai, China. His expertise lies in bioinformatics and computational biology, image processing, pattern recognition and data mining. He has developed and significantly contributed to several influential gene network inference algorithms which have been extensively used to identify pathways and gene targets involved in a variety of diseases such as cancer, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer's, obesity and diabetes etc. He has published 79 peer-reviewed papers including 8 papers in Nature, Nature Genetics, Cell and PNAS. As of October 2013, his publications have been cited 4903 times, according to Google Scholar.