Committee Members
George Perry
The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA
Dr. George Perry is dean of the College of Sciences and Professor of Biology at The University of Texas at San Antonio. Dr. Perry is recognized in the field of Alzheimer's disease research particularly for his work on oxidative stress. He received his bachelors of arts degree in zoology with high honors from University of California, Santa Barbara. After graduation, he headed to Scripps Institution of Oceanography and obtained his Ph.D. in marine biology under David Epel in 1979. He then received a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Cell Biology in the laboratories of Drs. Bill Brinkley and Joseph Bryan at Baylor College of Medicine where he laid the foundation for his observations of abnormalities in cell structures. In 1982, Dr. Perry joined the faculty of Case Western Reserve University, where he currently holds an adjunct appointment. He is distinguished as one of the top Alzheimer's disease researchers with over 800 publications, one of the top 100 most-cited scientists in neuroscience and behavior and one of the top 25 scientists in free radical research. Dr. Perry has been cited over 55,000 times and is recognized as an ISI highly cited researcher. Dr. Perry is editor for numerous journals and is editor-in-chief for the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and past-president of the American Association of Neuropathologists, as well as a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. Perry is recognized internationally for his work. He is a Foreign Correspondent Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Member of the Mexican National Academy of Sciences, and recent recipient of the National Plaque of Honor from the Republic of Panama Ministry of Science and Technology
Howard J Federoff
Georgetown University, USA
As Executive Vice President for Health Sciences at Georgetown University and Executive Dean of the School of Medicine, Dr. Federoff is responsible for Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC). He is a professor of Neurology and Neuroscience. Prior to Georgetown, he held appointments as Senior Associate Dean; Professor of Neurology, Medicine, Microbiology and Immunology; and Professor of Oncology and Genetics at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and as Founding Director of the Center for Aging and Development Biology at the Aab Institute of Biomedical Sciences and Founding Division Chief of Molecular Medicine and Gene Therapy. He also served as Director of the University of Rochester's Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program. Dr. Federoff's research interests include gene therapy and neurodegenerative diseases. He has published greater than 250 peer review and invited articles and serves as a reviewer for many journals, and currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Parkinson's Disease, Open Genomics Journal and Journal of Experimental Neurology. Federoff served as Chair of the NIH Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee from 2007-2010. He Chairs the Gene Therapy Resource Program for NHLBI, was President of the American Society for Neural Therapy and Repair (2012-2013) and is President of the American Society for Experimental Neurotherapeutics. Dr. Federoff received MS, PhD, and MD degrees from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, did his internship, residency, and clinical and research fellowships at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School, and practiced medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and University of Rochester. He is a Fellow of the AAAS and National Academy of Inventors.
Jin Jun Luo
Temple University, USA
Dr. Jin Jun Luo, MD, PhD, FAAN, FAANEM, is Professor of Neurology, director of EMG and Neuromuscular Medicine at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA, USA. Dr. Luo is board certified in Neurology, Clinical Neurophysiology, Neuromuscular Medicine and Electrodiagnostic Medicine. Dr. Luo is a fellow member of American Academy of Neurology and American Association of Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic medicine, and a member of the Philadelphia Neurological Society and American Clinical Neurophysiology Society. Dr. Luo serves the Editor-in-Chief of Neurological Cases and the Journal of Neurology and Experimental Neuroscience. Dr. Luo is interested in clinical and translational neuroscience research.
T Y Chang
Geisel School of Medicine, USA
Dr. Chang is currently a professor in the Biochemistry Department of Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, New Hampshire. He is internationally known as an outstanding scientist in the cholesterol metabolism research field. His laboratory did ground breaking work on the key cholesterol esterification enzyme acyl-CoA:cholesterol acyltransferase 1 (ACAT1/SOAT1). He and his colleagues identified the Acat1/Soat1 gene, performed functional analysis of the enzyme, and demonstrated Acat1/Soat1 as a target for treating several human diseases including Alzheimer's Disease and Niemann-Pick type C disease. In addition, his laboratory developed three mutant Chinese hamster ovary cell lines, M19, 25RA, and CT60. The M19 and the 25RA mutants served as cloning vehicles to identify the S2p and Scap genes, which mediate the SREBP2 dependent transcriptional control of sterol biosynthesis. The CT60 cells served as cloning vehicle to identify the Niemann-Pick type C1 gene, which plays a key role in intracellular cholesterol transport. Dr. Chang has served as an editorial board member of several major scientific journals, as a review panel member for National Institutes of Health, and as a consultant for several pharmaceutical companies. He also served as the Chairman of Biochemistry Department at Dartmouth from 2000-2008. For his research contributions, he received an NIH Merit Award in 1994, and was elected AAAS Fellow in 2011.
Othman Ghribi
University René Descartes, Paris France
Dr. Othman Ghribi has completed his Ph.D in Neuropharmacology in 1994 at the University René Descartes, Paris France, and postdoctoral studies from The University of Quebec (1996-1999). Dr. Ghribi then joined the Department of Pathology at the University of Virginia (1999-2004) and the Department of Basic Sciences at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine in 2004.
He has published more than 70 papers in reputed journals and serving on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Current Alzheimer’s disease the Journal of Neurodegenerative Diseases. Dr. Ghribi’s current research focuses on the role of environmental factors (chemical and dietary) and genetic susceptibility in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. He specifically focuses on the potential role of endoplasmic reticulum stress and lipid dyshomeostasis in generating neurodegeneration.
Xianmin Zeng
The Buck Institute for Research on Aging, USA
Dr. Xianmin Zeng is a leading stem cell biologist with expertise in neural development of human embryonic stem cells (ESC) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and has published more than 70 papers on ESC/iPSC research. One of her research focuses is to study neural/neuronal development in human and to model neurodegenerative diseases, with a focus on Parkinson’s disease, using patient-specific and engineered isogenic iPSC lines. She has developed scalable processes of generating functional CNS cells and PNS cells for cell replacement therapy and screening drugs of neurotoxic and/or neuroprotective effects. She is a recipient of several major funding by California Institute for Regenerative Medicine including a translational grant to develop clinically grade dopaminergic neurons from pluripotent stem cells for Parkinson’s disease.
She received her PhD in Molecular Biology from the Technical University of Denmark in 2000 and had her postdoctoral training in neurobiology at the National Institutes of Health in 2000-2055. She joined the faculty of the Buck Institute in 2005 where she builds the Institute’s Stem Cell Program. She received early tenure in 2009 and has been the Director of North Bay Shared Research Laboratory for Stem Cell and Aging at the Institute since 2008. She is also the Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of XCell Science Inc, a biotech company dedicated to providing reagents and services in neural space.
Pengcheng Han
Dignity Health St Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center, USA
Dr. Pengcheng Han obtained his MD from Beijing Medical University (China) and Ph.D degree from the University of Utah (USA). After his postdoctoral training at Hotchkiss Brain Institute (Canada), he worked as senior research associate at University of Calgary, and Barrow Neurological Institute. Currently he is working at Dignity Health St Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Arizona. Dr. Han's current research focuses on study PACAP and other related peptides in Alzheimer disease. His other research project includes the energy metabolism, mitochondria and neural excitability in neurological disorders.
Dustin R Wakeman
Rush University Medical Center, USA
Dr. Dustin R. Wakeman received his Ph.D in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California at San Diego and is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurological Sciences at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, IL. Dr. Wakeman's research interests include stem cell based therapeutics, disease modeling, neural transplantation, and morphological and molecular changes in neurodegenerative diseases and aging. His current efforts are centered on pre-clinical testing of dopamine neurons derived from pluripotent cells, both embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells following transplantation into animal models of Parkinson's disease. Dr. Wakeman has been the recipient of multiple NIH, Biotechnology, and Philanthropic grants leading to numerous peer-reviewed publications and currently sits on the leadership Council for the American Society for Neural Therapy and Repair.