Giulio Maria Pasinetti’s research is on lifestyle factors and metabolic co-morbidities influencing clinical dementia, neurodegeneration and Alzheimer’s disease has made him a top expert in his field. He has received over 30 grants and published over 160 groundbreaking research articles. Dr. Pasinetti is a Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry, Neuroscience, and Geriatrics and Adult Development, and is Director of the Brain Institute Center of Excellence for Novel Approaches to Neurotherapeutics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He also serves as Director of the Basic and Biomedical Research and Training, geriatric education and clinical center at the Bronx Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

The primary research goals in Dr. Pasinetti\'s lab is to investigate the biological processes which occur when, during aging, subjects with normal cognitive functions convert into the very earliest stages of Alzheimer\'s disease (AD) and then to frank dementia. The long-term goal of Dr. Pasinetti\'s lab is to improve the diagnosis of patients who are in the very earliest stages of Alzheimer\'s disease (AD), and to identify early molecular neurobiological abnormalities so that effective pharmacological treatments to slow or halt disease progression can be developed. Toward this goal Dr. Pasinetti\'s lab initiated a series of studies to characterize gene activities in the brain of early AD cases and animal model system of AD neuropathology, using high throughput cDNA and microarray approaches. Recent studies in Dr. Pasinetti\'s lab found that the expression of genes involved in synaptic functions, cell cycle, and cytoskeleton/cell adhesion, may play an important role in the onset and possibly the clinical progression of Alzheimer\'s disease dementia.

Dr. Mufson is a Professor in the Department of Neurological Sciences and the Alla V. and Solomon Jesmer Chair in Aging at Rush University, Chicago, IL. USA. He received a PhD from the Downstate Medical Center and later spent 3 years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Medical School and rose to the rank of Assistant Professor in the department of Neurology. Dr. Mufson is a molecular neuroanatomist in the area of dementia in the aged and diseased brain. He was recognized as one of the hundred most cited neuroscience researchers by the ISI

The focus of the research of Dr. Mufson\'s laboratory revolves around gaining a greater understanding of the mechanisms underlying the selective vulnerability of neuronal populations which degenerate in people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer\'s disease (AD) and Parkinson\'s disease (PD). In AD he has been performing studies aimed at defining the underlying mechanisms, which play a role in the degeneration of cholinergic basal forebrain neurons. In particular, his laboratory has performed numerous studies aimed at determining the involvement of the neurotrophin NGF and its high affinity trkA receptor as well as the low affinity p75 NTF receptor in the selective vulnerability of cholinergic basal forebrain (CBF) neurons in AD. More recently, Dr. Mufson\'s laboratory demonstrated that cholinergic deficits are not evident in subjects with early MCI or mild AD, leading to major rethinking of the validity of pathophysiologic markers underlying cognitive decline.

Moses Rodriguez is a Professor of Neurology and Immunology. He received his MD from Northwestern University. After Neurology residency at Mayo, he completed an NIH fellowship at UCSD and the Scripps Research Institute. His scientific interests include CNS remyelination and experimental neuropathology. Currently principal investigator of five grants and author of >370 peer-reviewed papers, he directs a prestigious National MS Society Center of Excellence and the Mayo Center for Multiple Sclerosis and Central Nervous System Demyelinating Diseases Research and Therapeutics. He is a Mayo Clinic Distinguished Investigator and received the Frontiers in Neuroscience award from the American Academy of Neurology.

Studying the mechanisms of neurological deficits and demyelination. Understanding the immunogenetics of demyelination. Promoting remyelination. Mechanism by which antibodies : Remyelination.

Functional proteomics has allowed us to formulate a comprehensive understanding of receptors\' structure, a mechanism for the macromolecular basis of receptor heteromerization and define heteromers formation (e.g. Adenosine A2A-Dopamine D2, Cannabinoid CB1-Dopamine D2 and NMDA NR1-Dopamine D1) at the molecular level. Through the study of noncovalent interactions, we have also elucidated the mechanism of NMDA mediated dynorphin neurotoxicity and designed a decoy peptide that takes into account the structure of its target. We are mapping and imaging the brain’s and other organs lipidome (glycolipids, cerebrosides, sphingomyelin, gangliosides and cardiolipins) and proteome in health and in pathological conditions such as blast induced traumatic brain injury, as well as mapping and imaging the anatomical distribution and localization of drugs of abuse in the addicted brain. We are investigating the lipidome and proteome of leucocytes from controls and drug addicted rats to find biomarkers for addiction and ones that would reflect the progressive changes that occur during the development of addiction, which would allow the determination of the status of an addicted individual with as little as one milliliter of blood. We are also developing and enhancing Ion-Mobility MALDI MS instrumentation and applications, with the ultimate goal of cellular imaging. We consider protein modeling and bioinformatics of all biological molecules and the possible drugs and compounds that interact with them to be important tools in understanding and designing therapeutic compounds to help alleviate or cure addiction. Although we seem to cast a large net, all of our work involves biomolecules that are important in understanding the biology of addiction.

Ahmad Salehi has received his PhD form the Netherlands Institute for Brain Research in Amsterdam and spent postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Amsterdam and Stanford Medical School in California. For around a decade, he worked as a Senior Scientist at the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences, Stanford Medical School working on the identification of genes involved in Down syndrome. Currently, he is Clinical Associate Professor at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford Medical School and a Senior Scientist at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, California. He regularly reviews manuscripts and grant proposals for reputed journals and foundations. Dr. Salehi has authored 56 research articles and book chapters with more than 1200 citations in the literature.

Neurodegenerative disorders
Down syndrome,
Animal models of PTSD.

Dr. Guang-Xian Zhang earned his Ph.D from Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden, in 1996 and began postdoctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 2000. He is currently professor at the Department of Neurology, Thomas Jefferson University, and co-director of the Neuroimmunology Laboratories at this institution. He has published more than 80 peer-reviewed papers. He has also served as a reviewer for first-class journals, and as a reviewer on study section rosters in several funding agencies. His studies mainly focus on using neural stem cells as a novel approach for treatment of human multiple sclerosis, via mechanisms of immunomodulation, neural cell repopulation and neuroregeneration.

Neural stem cells/gene therapy in multiple sclerosis (MS) and its animal model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). T cell and cytokine regulation in the pathogenesis and treatment of neurological autoimmune diseases.

Dr. C Glenn Lin completed his doctorate in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at the Johns Hopkins University in 1995. He performed postdoctoral research in the Department of Neurology at the Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Lin joined the Department of Neuroscience at the Ohio State University in 1999, where he directed his research to molecular mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer’s disease, and epilepsy. His recent research focuses on the role of glutamate transporters and mRNA oxidative damage in the biology of neurodegenerative diseases. He has published numerous papers in major journals and holds four patents.

Molecular mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative diseases - RNA oxidation, glutamate transporter alterations; molecular biology and biochemistry of glutamate transporters.

Dr. Jin Jun Luo, MD, PhD, FAAN, FAANEM, is an associate professor of Neurology and an adjunct associate professor of Pharmacology, and the Director of EMG and Neuromuscular Medicine at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia. He is board certified in neurology, clinical neurophysiology, neuromuscular medicine, and electrodiagnostic medicine. Dr. Luo is a frequent contributor to neurology literature and serves three Editorial Boards and a reviewer for 12 professional journals. Dr. Luo is a member of the Philadelphia Neurological Society, American Academy of Neurology, American Association of Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic Medicine, and American Clinical Neurophysiology Society.

Neuromuscular disorders, General neurology, Epilepsy, and Genetic and Congenital disorders.