INDRC - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Chairman of INDRC SAB
Ara S. Khachaturian, PhD (Chairman of INDRC SAB) is Chair and President of the National Biomedical Research Ethics Council (NBREC) a Nevada-based 501(c)(3) tax exempt public charity that leads an international effort to improve clinical and public health research ethics. In addition, he serves as Executive Vice-President of the Campaign to Prevent Alzheimer's Disease 2020 (PAD2020), Maryland-based 501(c)(3) tax exempt public charity that seeks resolution of important challenges facing efforts to combat Alzheimer's disease and other disorders affecting memory, movement and mood. In addition, he serves as the Executive Editor of Alzheimer's & Dementia: Journal of the Alzheimer's Association, Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment and Disease Monitoring, and Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translation Research & Clinical Interventions.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the School of Computing
Dr Varun Ojha is an Associate Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the School of Computing, Newcastle University. He is an Artificial Intelligence Theme Leader and Co-I on the EPSRC-funded National Edge AI Hub. He has made pioneering contributions in Artificial Intelligence: Deep Learning, Neural Networks, Machine Learning, and Data Science. Previously, Dr Ojha served as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Reading, UK, and as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), Zurich, Switzerland. Before this, Dr Ojha was a Marie-Curie Fellow (funded by the European Commission) at the Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic.
Dr. Adam Kaplin completed his undergraduate training at Yale University and his MD and PhD training at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. His research training experience includes having trained in the labs of two Nobel Laureates and completed his PhD and postdoctoral training in the Lab of Solomon Snyder, MD, who was the 2005 recipient of the National Medal of Science (the highest science honor in the United States). Dr. Kaplin, who maintains his Adjunct Faculty appointment at Johns Hopkins, was the Chief Psychiatric Consultant to the Johns Hopkins Multiple Sclerosis and Transverse Myelitis Centers. Dr. Kaplin investigated the biological basis of the effects of the immune system on mood regulation and cognition, and he provided neuropsychiatric care to patients afflicted with such comorbidities. His research is focused on understanding the biological basis of depression and dementia and discovering new ways to diagnose prognosticate and treat these diseases. Dr. Kaplin initially transitioned to working for Miralogx, a scientific investigation and drug development company that has helped launch three companies-MyMD, Mira, and Telomir Pharmaceuticals. Following his experience at Miralogx, Dr. Kaplin co-founded Minerve Pharmaceuticals, where he presently serves as Director, CEO, CSO, and CMO. Minerve is pioneering a novel breakthrough approach in CNS therapeutics by targeting synaptic pruning, an underlying driver of cognitive decline in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Progressive Multiple Sclerosis.
Job Titles:
- Principal Research Fellow at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience
Dr. Dennis Chan is Principal Research Fellow at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and a practising consultant neurologist leading a regional memory clinic. He holds dual research doctorates in basic and clinical neuroscience, with his PhD undertaken in the UCL lab of Nobel Laureate John O'Keefe. His main area of research is detection of early Alzheimer's disease, in particular using tests of spatial navigation and memory based on entorhinal grid cell and hippocampal place cell function, and he has pioneered the use of various tech-based methodologies for AD diagnosis including VR- and app-based tests. He is one of the scientific leads for the UK EDoN Initiative https://edon-initiative.org whose objective is to deliver next generation digital diagnostic toolkits for early detection of diseases causing dementia.
His academic portfolio spans both clinical and translational AD research. As well as his leading international projects in people at risk of sporadic and familial AD, Dr. Chan collaborates with Professor O'Keefe and other basic neuroscience researchers in UCL and Cambridge on cross-species studies covering both AD mice and human at risk cohorts aiming to elucidate the relationships between spread of pathological tau, disruption of neuronal function and behavioural deficits.
Dr. Chan receives grant funding from Alzheimer's Research UK, Wellcome , UK National Institute for Health Research and the UK Dementia Research Institute.
Dr. Klaus Romero is a prominent clinician scientist and scholar, who serves as Chief Science Officer at Critical Path Institute. As a recognized thought-leader, Dr. Romero established C-Path's Quantitative Medicine Program and has been an instrumental leader in the growth of the organization's portfolio of transformative consortia and public-private-partnerships across more than 16 medical product development areas. As both a scientist and an executive, Dr. Romero led the generation of actionable drug development tools in Alzheimer's disease, which introduced a transformation in the drug development process for this indication. In tuberculosis, Romero's leadership was instrumental in generating a drug development infrastructure that allowed the approval of the first new individual drug and the first new regimen for this disease, in more than 50 years.
Dr. Romero's leadership has also resulted in the transformation of medical product development paradigms for many other diverse areas, like polycystic kidney, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, as well as type 1 diabetes prevention, kidney transplantation, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and several other rare and orphan indications. As a trained clinical pharmacologist and epidemiologist, Dr. Romero is a fellow of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology, a founding member of the International Society of Pharmacometrics, as well as a member of the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and the International Society of Pharmacoepidemiology. He is also an Associate Research Professor at the University of Arizona, as well as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California and Arizona State University.
Dr. Peter J. Snyder is a professor of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and a professor of Art and Art History, at The University of Rhode Island (Kingston, RI, USA). Professor Snyder has maintained an active research career in neurodegenerative diseases, with an emphasis on biomarkers for early detection in Alzheimer's disease, for the past 25 years. Professor Snyder has previously served as a lead clinician and Sr. Director for Pfizer, Inc., and he spent 16 years as Vice President for Research at the medical system affiliated with Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and then at The University of Rhode Island. Professor Snyder is the Founding Editor-in-Chief of Alzheimer's & Dementia: Diagnosis, Assessment & Disease Monitoring, and he has served as Deputy Executive Editor of Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic College
Dr. Vaclav Kremen is an Associate Professor of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science and the Czech Technical University in Prague. He is also a Principal Engineer in the Department of Neurology Research at Mayo Clinic, focusing on neural engineering and epilepsy research. Dr. Kremen holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and Biocybernetics from the Czech Technical University and has completed postdoctoral research fellowships at Mayo Clinic in Cardiology and Neurology. His extensive research, which integrates advanced AI and biomedical engineering methods, aims to enhance the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders.
Dr. Kremen has received numerous awards, including the IEEE EMBS journal's 2nd Prize for best paper, and holds multiple patents in neurostimulation and biomedical signal processing. His contributions to the scientific community are further evidenced by his active involvement in professional societies, such as the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society and the American Epilepsy Society.
Dr. Kremen has an impressive publication record, with over 70 peer-reviewed articles in high-impact journals. His work has garnered significant attention, reflected in an h-index of 27 (Google Scholar), 23 (Scopus), and 21 (Web of Science). His publications have accumulated a total of 2207 citations (Google Scholar), 1532 citations (Scopus), and 1312 citations (Web of Science) as of July 2024. This record of high-quality research instills confidence in Dr. Kremen'swork and makes him a valuable member of the scientific advisory board at the INDRC.
Eva Troppová received her PhD from the Mendel University in Brno in the field of Wood Science and Technology. After graduation in 2015, she worked as a postdoc researcher and led the laboratory of thermal properties in the Josef Ressel Research Center Brno. She was involved in several national and international projects. In 2016 she acted as the project manager for European grants at the CEITEC Brno University of Technology. In 2017 she joined the Project Management Office of the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics, and Cybernetics at the Czech Technical University in Prague. As the project manager, she is responsible for the preparation and implementation of international grants, e.g. the successful H2020 Teaming project RICAIP (Research and Innovation Centre on Advanced Industrial Production, 50M). She is the executive director of the creative studio VisionBase focused on branding and advertising.
Job Titles:
- Specialist in Neurology and Psychiatry
She is the PI and coordinator of AI-Mind (project No. 964220 2021-26), a 14 million Euro Research and Innovation Action (RIA) H2020-SC1-BHC-06-2020 project and Working Package leader in the eBRAINS Health project (2022-2026) as part of the new European Infrastructure strategy of the ESFRI program EBRAINS for the secure research storage of highly sensitive prospective health data in the European Union.
Her career spans from senior consultancy clinical work to clinical department and research group leadership during the last years. Starting her career at the Max Planck Institute in Cologne, Germany, she has almost focused her activities on high-risk innovational developments reaching from positron emission tomography tracers to neuronal pruning phenomenon during endocrinological changes. Her research interest is in neuroendocrinology, neurobiology of ageing, and translational innovation project management. She has a proven track record in political lobbying, heading, participating and stimulating several national, EU and transatlantic project activities (ENIGI 2007-2017) Glasgow-Oslo Sheep Study, Cost actions BM1105. and BM1303.
In her positions she has been responsible for innovative planning, developing and administering major national BioTech projects of research on brain aging e.g. today, modernizing memory clinic programs, and testing cutting edge hypotheses in the real world. Most recently she is preparing with the EU flagship project AI-Mind to prepare the next medical care revolution by accelerating neede digitalization and introducing artificial intelligence algorithms technologies in the prediction and monitoring of dementia diseases.mHer experience is critical clinical data curation for AI strategic needs.
Her academic training includes: MD Bonn1984 / Dr. med 1990 Bonn, PhD 2007 University of Oslo, Norway. Specialist in Neurology 1987-1992. Specialist in Psychiatry 1993-1996. Stanford University 1997 - 2000. Senior Consultant, Head of Section and Head of Department positions between 1999-2016. She is now heading the innovative Cognitive Health Research Group (CoHR) at Oslo University Hospital, Norway with emphasis on clinical translational neurobiology of aging & dementia / public policy / politics of sciences / strategic planning / research funding.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Neurology at Charles University
Dr Hort is Professor of Neurology at Charles University and Motol University Hospital, Prague, Czech Republic. He is PI of the Czech Brain Ageing Study, a unique longitudinal prospective study examining early functional, metabolic and structural biomarkers of Alzheimer ́s Disease and other dementias. Dr. Hort served as chairman of Section on cognitive neurology of the Czech Neurological Society (2014-2020) and as a co-chair of the European Academy of Neurology Scientist Panel Dementia and Cognitive Neurology (2015-2019). Dr. Hort authorized European guidelines on Alzheimer disease and participated in EAN guidelines on non-Alzheimer dementias and combination therapy for Alzheimer disease. Dr. Hort‘s work indicated that spatial navigation testing can identify MCI and AD. Recently Dr. Hort has been involved in numerous initiatives to bring artificial intelligence, virtual reality and blockchain to both AD research and clinical practice. He founded Czech Alzheimer foundation, Alzheimerchain telemedicine and blockchain project and leads medical core in Cognitive+, start up using artificial intelligence for diagnostics of neurodegenerative disorders.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board of Directors
- Senior Adviser for Ministries of Health
As Chairman of the Akadimi Foundation, Jim Rice is a Senior Adviser for Ministries of Health, health system providers and integrated care systems across the US, as well as in Low and Middle Income Countries. He focuses his consulting work on health system strengthening through international study tours and building strategic governance structures and management systems for high performing, public service organizations, credit unions, and health sector organizations. Jim is frequently retained for client visioning and business planning in large and small public and private health systems; and leadership development for Physicians, Boards and C-Suite Senior Leaders. He is an Independent Contractor for Gallagher's Health Sector Vertical Practice, as well as an active advisor to various global health sector innovation bodies and organizations in Europe and Africa.
Dr. Rice holds masters and doctoral degrees in management and health policy from the University of Minnesota. He has received the University of Minnesota, School of Public Health Distinguished Alumni Leadership Award; a National Institute of Health Doctoral Fellowship; a US Public Health Service Traineeship in Hospital Management; a Bush Leadership Fellowship at Stanford and the National University of Singapore; and the American Hospital Association's Corning Award for Excellence in Hospital Planning. He is a Life Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE).
Dr. Rice has worked in over 35 countries and was recently Project Director in a large $200 million USAID funded project serving countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Dr. Rice holds faculty positions at The Strathmore School of Business, Nairobi, Kenya; The Advance Institute for Health Services Management in Prague, the Czech Republic; and Co-Founded the International Health Leadership Programme in The Judge School of Business, Cambridge University, Cambridge, England. He has lectured at the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in Durban, South Africa; The Thunderbird International School of Management in Arizona; Cornell University; The School of Public Health, University of California Berkeley, and Harvard University.
He serves on several governing boards, including: the International Advisory Board for Children's HeartLink, an organization committed to building cardiac care capacity in South East Asia; Crescent Cove, a respite and hospice service coordinator for children facing life-limiting illnesses; The International Advisory Board for the Notre Dame School of Law Religious Liberty Initiative; The Behavior at Work Collaborative (BAWC); One Heart Health that innovates in pediatric digital stethoscopes and AI for pediatric heart health; IntraHealth; and the Minnesota International NGO Network (MINN).
Job Titles:
- Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Jean-Marie Charles Bouteiller, a Research Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, joined the University of Southern California with a Masters in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (from University of Montpellier, FRANCE) to start a PhD in Computational Neuroscience with Prof. Michel Baudry. With this dual competency in Neuroscience and Engineering, he joined in 2002 the laboratory of Prof. Theodore W. Berger to start the development of a unique computational synaptic modeling platform that would take into account the multitude of mechanisms that comprise presynaptic terminal, cleft and postsynaptic spine. This platform has substantially grown throughout the years to include a large number of mechanisms and modulatory pathways as well as astrocytic modulation, while extending its hierarchical structure to span multiple biological scales, from biomolecular mechanisms to synapse, neuron and neuronal network
Job Titles:
- Program Coordinator
- Healthcare Executive
- President of the Association of Graduate Regulatory Educators
Jonathan Helfgott is a healthcare executive specializing in FDA regulatory strategy, clinical development, and market access. He provides expertise to companies across all phases of medical product commercialization, overseeing global regulatory submissions, clinical trial design and execution, health authority communications, and market entry strategies. He is also the Founder of FDA Partners, a boutique advisory firm focused on global regulatory and clinical strategy.
At Johns Hopkins University, Jonathan is a program coordinator and senior Lecturer for the Master of Science in Regulatory Science Program.
Previously, Jonathan served at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 2006 to 2015, most recently as Associate Director for Risk Science in the Office of Scientific Investigations at the Center for Drug Evaluation & Research (CDER). He also held roles as a Compliance Officer and Pre-Market Reviewer at the Center for Devices & Radiological Health (CDRH), where he specialized in Digital Health Technologies (DHTs) and Software as/in a Medical Device (SaMD/SiMD).
Jonathan is the elected President of the Association of Graduate Regulatory Educators (AGRE) and has lectured extensively at academic institutions and professional organizations. His work has been featured in The Washington Post article, "Regulatory Science Degrees Help Researchers Think Outside the Lab." He is a co-editor of the Food and Drug Law Institute's Biomedical Software Regulation, a contributing member of the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI) - Digital Health Technologies, and has published extensively in Applied Clinical Trials and Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry.
Earlier in his career, Jonathan was a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where he supported genomic research and clinical study design at the National Institute on Aging under the Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA) program.
Jonathan holds an MS in Bioscience Regulatory Affairs from Johns Hopkins University and a BS in Cell/Molecular Biology & Genetics from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Job Titles:
- Distinguished Researcher Position at the Czech Institute of Robotics
Josef Sivic holds a distinguished researcher position at the Czech Institute of Robotics, Informatics and Cybernetics at the Czech Technical University in Prague where he heads the Intelligent Machine Perception project and the ELLIS Unit Prague. He received a habilitation degree from Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris in 2014 and PhD from the University of Oxford in 2006. After Phd he was a post-doctoral associate at the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received the British Machine Vision Association Sullivan Thesis Prize, three test-of-time awards at major computer vision conferences, and an ERC Starting Grant. He currently serves on the board of the European Laboratory of Learning and Intelligent Systems (ELLIS) and as a chairman of the AICZECHIA national AI research initiative.
Job Titles:
- Executive Director of the National Supercomputing Institute Located at UNLV
Joseph Lombardo is currently serving as the Executive Director of the National Supercomputing Institute located at UNLV. Additionally, he serves as a Core PI on two research collaborations with the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health (#P20GM109025 and #1P20AG068053) and one with the Nevada Institute of Personalized Medicine (NIPM) (#P20GM121325). Two of the collaborations (#P20GM109025 and #P20GM121325) are "Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence." They are currently funded by Institutional Development Awards (IDeA) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health. His core-PI responsibilities deal with data management, acquisition, and analytic activities. Joseph Lombardo has served as a PI and administrative lead on numerous federal awards and contracts over a 24-year tenure. He has been a consultant to private industry, academia, and government laboratories with an expertise in computational modeling, parallel computing, data management and data visualization. He has published numerous technical papers and reports and co- authored three textbooks. He has served as an expert witness for the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation "Subcommittee on Technology, Innovation, and Competitiveness" in the area of High-Performance Computing as it relates to and supports academic research. A fundamental objective of his research is to demonstrate a wide variety of nationally important applications that support primary government interests, including health care, education, scientific research, and the improvement of U.S. business competitiveness.
Job Titles:
- Board Certified Neurologist
Dr. Kirby, is a board certified neurologist, and a nationally recognized expert in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. He is a specialist in development of drugs for the Central Nervous System and works as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry for developing needed therapeutics for CNS diseases. He has been a medical officer for several pharmaceutical companies and has served as a medical monitor on multiple programs.
Starting his professional career in a busy neurological practice, he later founded several companies including Pivotal Research Centers, which grew to become one of the nation's largest free-standing private clinical research centers, which he later sold to a public company. He has extensive drug development experience having worked as a principal investigator on nearly 400 clinical trials, consulted with pharmaceutical companies and has played a part in the FDA approval of over 70 new drugs.
He cofounded ZettaScience, a company focused on aggregating scientific data from across all disciplines and making it available to all interested scientists worldwide. The belief is that interested minds will repurpose the data to answer questions not imagined by the originators and that multi-disciplinary approaches to solving complex problems will not be resolved within a single discipline.
Job Titles:
- Physician
- Adjunct Professor at the University of California
- Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Proxenia Venture Partners
Menghis Bairu, is a physician, entrepreneur, coach, business executive, editor, author, and philanthropist. He has 30 years of international experience in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, drug delivery and device, global health, and non-profit arenas.
Dr. Bairu is founder, chairman, and CEO of Proxenia Venture Partners, which provides capital, management talent, and access to a global networks of experts to companies in late preclinical and early-stage clinical development in biotechnology that address global challenges and improve patient lives. Most recently, he served as Executive Chairman of Treos Bio, a start-up company that uses computational biology to develop precision cancer immunotherapies tailored to patients' genetics. In addition, he is Founder and Chairman Emeritus of Serenus Biotherapeutics, an emerging market focused specialty biopharmaceutical company. In that role he raised up to $43 million in series A funding.
Dr. Bairu concurrently served as Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, Head of Global Development for Elan and President/CEO of Speranza Therapeutics. As EVP and CMO, Dr. Bairu was member of the Elan's Operating Committee. He successfully led corporate R&D due diligence processes that resulted in a transaction with J&J at a value of approximately $1.5 billion. In 2013, he also led corporate R&D due diligence resulting in the sale of Elan to Perrigo for $8.6 billion.
Prior to joining Elan, Dr. Bairu worked at Genentech for more than six years in several managed care, medical, and commercial roles (Rituximab, Herceptin, TNK, tPA, Growth Hormone). He also served on the board of directors of various companies, including One World Health, a non-profit drug development company funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Dr. Bairu currently serves as Adjunct Professor at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine where he lectures on global clinical trials' design, development, and conduct.
Ms. Uldrijanová brings to INDRC more than 15 years of leadership experience in the business, customer care and non-profit sectors. Since 2016, she has led the Czech non-profit organization Liga vozíčkářů with nearly 100 employees, helping people with physical and combined disabilities. She led the fundraising and communications for the organization, created effective strategies to maximize donations, identified and explored donor pools with a focus on creating long-term collaborations, and built business relationships as well as alliances with other nonprofits. She also participated in the creation of a podcast series introducing the world of disabled people to the public, and organized sporting and cultural events for people with disabilities and their families. Since 2009, she served as the General Manager of the Regus office in Brno, a British company that operates worldwide in more than 120 countries and provides back-office services for teams of all sizes on flexible terms.
Ms. Uldrijanová is involved in several networking business clubs and is an active member of the Regional Chamber of Commerce in Brno, a major business association in the Czech Republic. Ms. Uldrijanová graduated in 1998 with a Master's Degree in History from the Faculty of Arts and Geography of the Faculty of Sciences of Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Assistant Professor of Pathology
Michael W. Lutz, PhD is Associate Professor of Neurology and Assistant Professor of Pathology in the Division of Translational Brain Sciences, Neurology Department at the Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Lutz is co-Director of the Data Management at Statistics Core of the Duke/UNC Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. He received BS and PhD degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University. Dr. Lutz held roles as Director of Computational Biology and Director of Bioinformatics Science and Technology at GlaxoSmithKline before joining the faculty at Duke in 2009.
At GlaxoSmithKline, Dr. Lutz invented novel biomedical analysis methods, developed data management and data integration approaches for genetic association studies, microarray and proteomics data and made numerous contributions in the areas of protein bioinformatics and evolutionary biology. He has led computational biology project teams working with multiple therapeutic areas on phases of drug discovery projects from target identification through the assessment of safety and efficacy in humans. At Duke, Dr. Lutz has focused his efforts on three main areas of research: (1) identification and characterization for functional and clinically-relevant genes and variants for Alzheimer's disease, (2) developing a clearer biochemical and physiological understanding of the interactions of age, sex and APOE genotype on the risk and progression of Alzheimer's disease. This work includes development of mathematical and statistical models for analysis of genetic, genomic, proteomic and metabolomic data and support of the development of mouse models that are more relevant to human sporadic Alzheimer's disease than the currently available models, (3) clearer understanding of the genetic heterogeneity of neuropsychiatric symptoms (NPS) in Alzheimer's Disease patients.
Dr. Lutz has more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and is PI/co-PI on several NIH grants.
Michelle M. Mielke, PhD is Chair, of the Department of Epidemiology and Prevention, and Professor, Public Health Sciences-Epicare and Professor, Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine at the Wake Forest School of Medicine. She received a BS in neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh and a PhD in psychiatric epidemiology from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. From 2007 to 2011, Dr. Mielke was an assistant professor in psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She is currently an associate professor in the Departments of Epidemiology and Neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Dr. Mielke works as a translational epidemiologist to identify fluid and neuroimaging biomarkers for the diagnosis, prediction and/or progression of neurodegenerative diseases. Much of her work has emphasized the utility of blood-based lipids, especially the role of sphingolipids (ceramides and sphingomyelins). In relation to Parkinson's disease, she is currently examining plasma ceramides and glucosylceramides as potential biomarkers of cognitive and functional progression. Dr. Mielke has more than 80 peer-reviewed publications and is the PI of several NIH- and Foundation-funded clinical- and epidemiological-based grants.
Mat Sharafyan brings a robust blend of AI, data science and entrepreneurship to the INDRC. With a diverse background in economics, statistics, and data science, he has developed a keen insight into the complexities of building and managing advanced technologies and systems. His career has been marked by the initiation of impactful IT projects aimed at boosting operational efficiency, alongside innovative leadership roles in both the private and public sectors. Most notably, as a co-founder and inventor of Saima, world's first AI-based content aware speed, he has pioneered technologies that enhance video and audio comprehension, pushing the boundaries of how AI can support cognitive functions and learning efficiency.
An alumnus of the University of Michigan School of Information with a Master's in Applied Data Science, and holding a Master's degree in Economics from the American University of Armenia, his academic background lays a solid foundation for his professional endeavors. His work at Saima AI and experience in inventing and building technologies positions him uniquely to contribute to projects that intersect technology, learning science, data science, and cognitive science.
Job Titles:
- Scientific Manager Research & Technology
Ms. Priya Blažková-Chandra worked over 15 years in the field of healthcare informatics focusing on systems validation and testing, health system improvement, and quality and performance measurement. Her professional journey began with a start-up in San Francisco, CA, where she translated measure specifications from regulatory bodies on the effectiveness of care, access/availability of care, and medication utilization, expanding to larger proprietary data sets as the company was acquired by IQVIA, a leading provider of advanced analytics and clinical research for the biopharma industry. She managed, supported, and extensively trained with cross-functional teams from across the globe.
Prior to IQVIA, Ms. Blažková-Chandra worked in the field of international health and development for almost 10 years, which led to her settling in the Czech Republic. She coordinated US government-funded hospital partnerships with the American International Health Alliance in Washington, DC, and then for three years led their in-country programs in Slovakia, Croatia, and Bosnia & Hercegovina. She has also consulted with the World Bank.
Ms. Blažková-Chandra received a Master's Degree in Health Policy from George Washington University in Washington, DC, and a Bachelor Degree in Biology and Mathematics (Statistics) from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
Dr. Mazer's interest in mathematical modeling began during the 1970s, as an MD student in the Harvard-M.I.T. Program in Health Sciences and Technology and a PhD student in the Physics Department at M.I.T., where he developed quantitative models of micelle formation, biliary lipid secretion and cyclic neutropenia.
Prior to joining Roche, Dr. Mazer was an Associate Professor of Medicine (Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition) at Boston University (2005 - 2008) and was previously employed at TheraTech Inc./ Watson Laboratories in Salt Lake City (1987 - 2004) and at Sandoz Ltd in Basel (1983 - 1987). He was also an Adjunct Professor of Pharmaceutics at the University of Utah (1987 - 2005) and a visiting Professor in the Pharmacy departments of the University of Basel and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 1992.
Dr. Mazer is the founder and sole employee of NAM consulting.
Job Titles:
- Physician and Economist Graduated from 2 Nd Medical Faculty of the Charles University in Prague and from School of Public Health at Harvard University in the USA
Pavel Hroboň worked as Deputy Minister of Health responsible for health insurance, pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Previously, he was employed by the General Health Insurance Company of the Czech Republic as an advisor and director of strategy. He also gained experience as a consultant for McKinsey&Company. After graduation, he worked for several years as a physician specializing in the area of general internal medicine. He is the founder of the Advance Healthcare Management Institute and works at the Third Faculty of Medicine at Charles University, Czech Republic.
His work and research interest include health systems reforms, changes in funding and provision of health services required by the spread of chronic diseases, competition of payers and risk-adjustment systems, long-term care, reimbursement of pharmaceuticals, health technology assessment, the impact of reimbursement mechanisms on provider behaviour, and strategies of health insurers and providers.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Medicine
Pei-Jung Lin, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health at Tufts Medical Center and Tufts University School of Medicine. As a health economist, Dr. Lin specializes in outcomes research, value measurement, and cost-effectiveness analysis. Her current research focuses on the health and financial impacts of Alzheimer's disease on individuals, caregivers, and the healthcare system. Her recent NIA-funded work has examined disparities in Alzheimer's diagnosis, treatment, end-of-life care, and healthcare costs, highlighting systemic inequalities in healthcare delivery. Dr. Lin's leadership in the field includes serving on the editorial board for Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of The Alzheimer's Association since 2015, as a Section Editor for Alzheimer's & Dementia: Behavior & Socioeconomics of Aging since its launch in 2024, and as a Guest Editor for Value in Health's Themed Section on the "Health Economics of Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias" in 2025. She also serves as a Committee Member of the Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of the Alzheimer's Association Massachusetts/New Hampshire Chapter. Dr. Lin earned her doctorate in health policy and management from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her MS in health policy and management from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
Prof Dominic Trépel is an academic health economist and holds a doctoral degree (PhD) in Economics with specialisation in health. For the last two decades, Prof Trépel has maintained specific research interests in the economics of brain health, economics related to ageing and global health economics. Prof Trépel is faculty Health Economist for Trinity School of Medicine (Dept of Psychiatry) and for the Global Brain Health Institute (www.gbhi.org) and is Director of Trépel Lab in Trinity College Institute for Neuroscience (www.healtheconomics.ie). Technically, Trépel is interested in health technology assessment, economic evaluation, discrete choice experiments and applied econometrics.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Chairman of the Toulouse Gérontopôle
- Professor
Prof. Bruno Vellas, MD, PhD is Professor of Medicine and Chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine and Geriatric Medicine at the CHUT, and Chief of the Alzheimer's Disease Clinical and Research Center at the University Hospital Center in Toulouse, France. Prof. Vellas is a member of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, the Chairman of the International Academy on Nutrition and Aging, and Principal Investigator for the European Alzheimer's Disease Consortium.
Prof. Vellas is also the Chairman of the Toulouse Gérontopôle, and member of the Aging Team of the INSERM unit 1027. He is the PI of the European Alzheimer's Disease Consortium (EADC) and has published over 300 articles related to Alzheimer's Disease, especially on disease modifying treatment. He is the PI of several large international trials in the field of Alzheimer's Disease (GuidAge and MAPT) and is editor in Chief of The Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging.
Vladimír Mařík received his PhD. in 1979 and DrSc. degree in 1989 from the Czech Technical University (CTU) in Prague, Czech Republic.
For more than 15 years he acted as the managing director of the Rockwell Automation Research Center, Prague. His professional interests include distributed AI, multi-agent systems, knowledge-based systems, machine learning, planning and scheduling for manufacturing. He acted as the Head of the Department of Cybernetics, CTU in the years 1999-2013. He is the founder and Scientific Director of the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics, and Cybernetics, CTU in Prague. He's been a member of the R&D&I Council of the Czech Republic (2011-2015 and since 2018). He is co-author of the National Initiative for Industry 4.0 of the Czech Republic and a Board member of AICZECHIA, the Czech AI Community Network. He is co-author, principal investigator and coordinator of the Research and Innovation Centre on Advanced Industrial Production (RICAIP) since 2017 (approx. 50M).
He is the author of more than 160 articles/conference papers, co-editor of 17 books, co-author of 5 granted patents. He acted as coordinator of other projects in AI and industrial robotics, such as the National Competence Centre on Cybernetics and AI (TA CR, 8M).
He received the Medal of Merit for service to the Czech Republic in the area of science by the President of the Czech Republic (2017), the Cross of Honour for Science and Art awarded by the President of Austria (2003), Honoris Causa doctorate (dr.h.c.) from the Brno University of Technology (2003), top Czech science award Česká Hlava - Invention (2010). He acted as Editor-in-chief of IEEE SMC Part C (2005-2013), Board member of IEEE SMC (2005 to present), has received the IEEE SMC Outstanding Contribution Award (2012) and has been Vice-president of IEEE SMC (2013 to present).
Jacques Touchon, MD, PhD is Emeritus Professor at Montpellier University France , member of the Institut des Neurosciences de Montpellier (INM) INSERM UNIT 1298. He is the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer's disease (JPAD), co-Chairman and founding member of the of the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer's Disease conference (CTAD). Jacques Touchon obtained his MD in 1979, and from 1980 to 1984 degrees in neurology, psychiatry, neurophysiology and geriatric. Formerly, Jacques Touchon was Professor of Neurology at the Montpellier Medical School (1990-2014) Chief of the Neurology Department of the Montpellier University Hospital (2004-2014), Dean of the Montpellier Medical School (2000-2010), Director of the Center for Memory Resources and Research (CMRR) for the Languedoc-Roussillon region (2004-2014). His areas of interest are Alzheimer's Disease, aging and neurodegenerative diseases. He was awarded for excellence in Alzheimer Disease Research: Academic Palms in 1999, PINEL prize in 2000 and in 2007 Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.
Prof. Paolo Maria Rossini graduated in Medicine and Surgery with honors from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and - after a career developed in prestigious Italian and North American academic and clinical centers - has been a full professor of Neurology since 2011 at the Faculty of Medicine of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and director of the Neuroscience Area of the Policlinico Foundation A. Gemelli. He has published over 600 articles in international scientific journals on the mechanisms of healthy and diseased brain using highly innovative technologies, including those at the base of the NEUROCONNECT project. He is a world expert in the study of cerebral activity neurodegenerative mechanisms through neurophysiological techniques. He was the first and only Italian president of the International Federation of Clinical Neurophysiology since 1949 (year of IFCN foundation, today it aggregates about 20,000 neurophysiologists from over 60 countries all over the world). In recent years, Prof. Rossini's commitment has been focused on the technological transfer towards the early diagnosis of neurological diseases and towards rehabilitation procedures with non-invasive electromagnetic stimulations of the brain. In this context, dozens of young Italian and foreign researchers have been trained over the years under his supervision and coordination. This interest is now at the service of NEUROCONNECT, which intends to become an incubator of emerging junior scientists whose development will also be ensured by a context of multidisciplinary and integrated sciences: from information technology to biomedical engineering, from neurophysiology to neuropsychology, from modeling to the development of innovative software. Furthermore, the Prof. Rossini - who is a founding member and President of NEUROCONNECT - will coordinate the development strategies for the generation of new services that the spin-off can offer to the client companies.
Vaclav Snasel's research and development experience include over 30 years in the Industry and Academia. He works in a multi-disciplinary environment involving Industry 4.0, Energy 4.0, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Information Retrieval, Deep Learning, Data Compression, Machine Intelligence, Neural Network, nature, Bio-inspired computing, Data Mining, and applied to various real-world problems.
He has given more than 17 plenary lectures and conference tutorials in these areas. In addition, he has authored/co-authored several refereed journal/conference papers and book chapters. He has published more than 700 papers; ORCID:http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9600-8319 (520+ papers are recorded at Web of Science h-index 25 ResearcherID: B-8094-2009; 650+ papers are recorded at SCOPUS h-index 31; 10000+ citations at Google Scholar and h-index 43).
Currently, he serves as the Rector of VSB -Technical University of Ostrava.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Neurology at Masaryk University
Robert Mikulik is a Professor of Neurology at Masaryk University in Brno and the Director of the Stroke Research Program at St. Anne's University Hospital in Brno in the Czech Republic. He was trained at St. Anne's University Hospital in Brno and in the Texas Medical Center, Houston, USA.
Professor Mikulik's main research and professional interests are diagnostics, treatment and prevention of acute stroke, stroke care organization, stroke care quality, and raising stroke awareness. The Professor's research group involves more than 30 professionals of different expertise. The research portfolio is designed across a translational axis from preclinical to clinical research and implementation research.
To foster pre-clinical research in stroke, Prof. Mikulik established the STROKEBRNO Research Cluster (www.strokebrno.com) involving several research institutions and companies in the Brno region. The main goal of the consortium is the development of new treatments for stroke, especially new pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches to recanalization in patients with acute ischemic stroke.
In 2020, Prof. Mikulik and his team established the Czech Stroke Research Network STROCZECH, which involved about half of all stroke centers into one research cluster. The goal is to conduct multi-center academic clinical trials in the Czech Republic. Currently, twenty stroke centers participate in this network.
In 2016, Prof. Mikulik and his team developed the RES-Q Registry of Stroke Care Quality (www.qualityregistry.eu), an academic tool for stroke care quality measurement and improvement. RES-Q was intended to be used primarily at Eastern Europe; however, RES-Q has become globally used quality improvement platform. Nowadays, it is used in all continents by 2000 stroke centers from 85 countries, containing stroke care quality data of more than half million of patients. Prof. Mikulik leads the Implementation Research Network in Stroke Care Quality (IRENE) involving 60 experts from 30 countries in Europe with the aim to provide stroke care quality evidence and improvement.
Prof. Mikulik has developed simulation-based training in acute stroke treatment logistics for stroke teams (www.stroke-simulation.eu). Since 2016, he has conducted over 60 courses for more than 1.500 stroke professionals from 25 countries from Europe, Africa and Asia. The Professor helped to establish similar stroke simulation training programs in other countries. He is also a co-founder and member of the Simulation Training Committee in the European Stroke Organisation.
Robert Mikulik served as a Member at Large in the Executive Committee in the European Stroke Organisation (ESO) during 2016-2017. Since 2015, he has been developing and chairing the ESO EAST Program aiming at improving stroke care in Eastern European and Central Asian countries.
The Professor is a co-author of the Stroke Action Plan for Europe 2018-2030, a strategy document issued by ESO and Stroke Alliance for Europe. He is also a member of the Steering Committee responsible for Stroke Action Plan implementation.
The Professor has published more than 200 articles in renowned journals and has participated in many national and international research projects. In 2017, Prof. Mikulik received the Spirit of Excellence Award from the ESO and ANGELS Initiative for his commitment to excellence in stroke care.
Dr. Nosheny is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Radiology and Biomedical Imaging at University of California San Francisco. She holds a joint appointment at the San Francisco Veteran's Administration Medical Center. She is the lead investigator of the UCSF Brain Health Registry, a longitudinal, online cohort to facilitate clinical neuroscience research. She also leads digital assessment efforts for the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Imitative (ADNI). Dr. Nosheny received her PhD in Neuroscience from Georgetown University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. She serves on the Editorial Boards of Alzheimer's & Dementia and the Journal for the Prevention of Alzheimer's Disease.
Stephen Levine, PhD, is a tenured full professor at the School of Public Health, University of Haifa. He is a psychometrician by training with over 15 years of experience in psychiatric epidemiology. To date, he has achieved an H-index of 42, published over 130 peer-reviewed journal articles (including in the BMJ, Lancet Psychiatry, JAMA Network Open, and JAMA Psychiatry), and has received multiple industry and competitive research grants. He serves on the editorial board of European Neuropsychopharmacology and has contributed as a grant reviewer for funders such as Horizon and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. Additionally, he has established ongoing collaborations exceeding ten years with colleagues from Israel, Germany, Sweden, and the US.
His research program focuses on identifying risk and preventative factors for neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. To study the risk of these disorders, he harnesses data based on (a) observational study designs with health maintenance organizations and multi-generation population-based registry data. To study the course of disorders, he uses advanced psychometric approaches to advance the understanding of longitudinal survey and clinical trial data. This line of research, for example, led to contributions indicating that it seems possible to shorten assessment time in clinical trials and quantify the extent of cognitive heterogeneity in dementia. To advance the study of dementia, he instigated a nationally representative geriatric cohort with retrospective and prospective information spanning 19 years. Based on this cohort, in a series of studies with colleagues, he examined the associations between schizophrenia, folate, antidepressants, opioids, and ADHD with the risk of dementia. Finally, Stephen led initiatives that resulted in R packages to estimate and extend the Number Needed to Treat and quantify the relative risk for interrupted time series study designs.
Steven Carroll, MD, PhD, is a Distinguished University Professor and former Chair of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). He holds the Gordon R. Hennigar, Jr., MD, Endowed Chair in Pathology and serves as Director of the South Carolina-Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (SC-ADRC), which is a joint effort between MUSC, Clemson University and the University of South Carolina. Dr. Carroll is also the Director of the Carroll A. Campbell Jr. Neuropathology Laboratory (the Neuropathology Core of the SC-ADRC) and Executive Director of the Veterans' Health Administration National Coordinating Center for Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias. Dr. Carroll serves on the Advisory Council of the State of South Carolina's Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Resource Coordination Center, where he chairs the Research and Evaluation Subcommittee. Dr. Carroll also serves on the South Carolina Parkinson's Disease Registry Advisory Committee and on the Board of Directors for the South Carolina Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. He is a member of the Neuropathology Working Group of the T21 Society, which studies the development of Alzheimer's disease in Down syndrome.
Sudhir Sivakumaran, PhD, serves as the Vice President of Translational Medicine at Beacon Biosignals. Dr. Sivakumaran brings more than 20 years of combined academic, industry scientific, and management experience with expertise in neurodegeneration and neuropsychiatric disorders such as Epilepsy, Stroke, Alzheimer's, and Autism. In addition to a bachelor's and master's degree in microbiology obtained from the University of Madras, India, he holds a PhD in Neuroscience from SISSA/ISAS, Trieste, Italy. Dr. Sivakumaran also brings prior experience in systems biology, computation modeling and analysis from his research tenures at the National Center for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore, India and the University of Tokyo in Japan.
He leads Beacon's efforts to evaluate the scientific, clinical and regulatory evidentiary considerations for the development and evaluation of novel biomarkers in neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric indications. As part of the Leadership team at Beacon, he is also involved in strategic prioritization and business development activities.
Previously, Dr. Sivakumaran led the Alzheimer's disease consortium (CPAD) and Neuroscience Program at the Critical Path Institute (C-Path) where he oversaw strategic and scientific planning, and management of pre-competitive initiatives in partnership with industry, academic and regulatory agencies. Prior to that, he led pre-clinical research management and external partnerships and alliances at Aptinyx, Inc. and Pfizer. Dr. Sivakumaran is a member of the Scientific Program Committee of the Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC), serves on the Scientific Review Board of the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF), and most recently, joined the INDRC as a Scientific Advisory Board member.
Vít Dočkal graduated in 2006 from the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University with two doctoral degrees from the Department of Political Science, and International Relations and European Studies.
In the years of 2009 - 2013 he had been leading the ICRC Project Management Office at St. Anne's University Hospital in Brno - a large R&D infrastructure funded by 180M from the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) and the state funds. Since 2013 he works as the professional project manager at the Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics, and Cybernetics of the Czech Technical University in Prague (CIIRC CTU). As the head of the Project Management Office (2013 - 2021), he was responsible for the strategic project management agenda of 100M+.
He led the project team during the preparation of the EDS Grant for the new CIIRC facility, OP RDE projects (Excellent Research Teams call of the ESIF-Operational Programme Research, Development and Education) and successful H2020 Teaming project RICAIP (Research and Innovation Centre on Advanced Industrial Production, 50M). Vít Dočkal is the head of the CLAIRE Prague Office, closely involved in CLAIRE's engagement with industry and in supporting the AI ecosystem in Central and Eastern Europe. He is also co-founder of the start-up company TRIX Connections.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Artificial Intelligence
Wolfgang Wahlster is a Professor of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and a pioneer of AI in Germany and Europe. As a founding director of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and in his role as its long-time CEO and scientific director, he has developed DFKI into one of the world's largest research institutions in this field with more than 1000 employees by 2019 and more than 100 successful spin-off companies. He has served as an elected President of three international AI organizations: IJCAII, EurAI, and ACL. He is an elected Fellow of AAAI, EurAI, and GI. As a professor at the world-renowned Informatics Campus at Saarland University, he laid some of the foundations for natural language dialog systems, user modelling, and speech-to-speech translation. His current research areas are multimodal dialog systems for human-centered AI and cyber-physical production systems for the fourth industrial revolution (Industrie 4.0), a concept that he coined in 2010. He currently heads the steering group for a national AI standardization roadmap of the German government and serves the DFKI management board as Chief Executive Advisor (CEA). He is on the Executive Board of the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) at UC Berkeley and a member of the steering board of Germany's platform for AI. Wahlster is a member of the Nobel Prize Academy in Stockholm, the German National Academy Leopoldina and three other prestigious academies.
For his research, he has been awarded the German Future Prize, the First Class Cross of Merit and the Grand Cross of Merit by the Federal President of Germany. Other awards include four honorary doctorates from universities in Darmstadt, Linkoeping, Maastricht and Prague as well as an Honorary Citizenship of his hometown, Saarbruecken. For his substantial contributions to various fields of AI, Wolfgang Wahlster received the IJCAI Donald E. Walker Award in 2013 and the ICMI Sustained Accomplishment Award of the ACM in 2016. As a member of numerous advisory bodies of the German Chancellor and the Federal Government such as the Partners for Innovation, the Research Union and the Data Ethics Commission, he has co-founded innovation platforms such as Industrie 4.0 and Learning Systems. He holds a seat on ten industrial supervisory boards and technical advisory boards of large companies, medium-sized enterprises and start-ups.