CLEAR-AD.ORG - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Professor of Systems Pharmacology at Mayo Clinic Rochester

Hu Li, PhD is a Professor of Systems Pharmacology at Mayo Clinic Rochester and serves as MPI on the CLEAR-AD U19 Analytics Core. He is a scientist with groundbreaking contributions in Systems Biology and Pharmacology in Alzheimer's disease (AD), aging, stem cell and cancer. Dr. Li is focused in developing innovative computational tools inspired in systems biology and pharmacology, that are critical for the development of individualized systems medicine in Alzheimer's disease. His team at Mayo Clinic has developed many systems biology network tools, including NetDecoder, P-Map, MALANI, EDDI, RSI, PERMUTOR and ANNE. Li's team is actively developing novel network tools and harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) methods to study context-dependent activities of regulatory networks at genome-wide scale as well as their spatial regulation. These and other computational platforms under development can greatly illuminate the understanding of disease mechanisms underlying drugs' modes of action, addressing key challenges in Big Data-oriented biomedical complex systems and will ultimately lead to precision medicine for each Alzheimer patient. Dr. Li's team is highly collaborative and their contributions using systems biology's methodologies span from Alzheimer's disease and neurodegenerative conditions to aging, senescence, cellular reprogramming and engineering, cancers, and COVID-19.

Job Titles:

• Research Scientist and Assistant Professor of Neuroscience

Mariet Allen is a Research Scientist and Assistant Professor of Neuroscience in the department of Neuroscience at Mayo Clinic in FL. She completed undergraduate studies in Biochemistry at the University of Leeds, and a PhD in human genetics at the University of Edinburgh, graduating in 2011. She then joined the research lab of Dr. Ertekin-Taner, completing her post-doctoral training in 2016, and continued working with the group in her current role. Mariet has received funding from the Florida Department of Health, Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine and Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. She also serves as a co-investigator on NIH funded studies which include projects that are part of national consortia focused on Alzheimer's disease genetics and systems biology research. In the CLEAR-AD U19 Program, Dr. Allen serves as MPI for both the Omics Core and Project 1.

Job Titles:

• Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Mayo Clinic Florida

Nilüfer Ertekin-Taner, MD, PhD is a Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at Mayo Clinic Florida and contact PI of the CLEAR-AD U19 Program. She is a physician-scientist with seminal contributions to the field of Alzheimer's disease and related neurodegenerative conditions. Her innovative, groundbreaking work combining complex genomics and deep endophenotypes is essential for the discovery of molecular disease mechanisms, new treatments and biomarkers for these devastating and currently incurable conditions. She has pioneered the endophenotype approach in genetic studies of Alzheimer's Disease and related disorders (ADRD). Her laboratory applies leading-edge analytic approaches to integrate biological traits with multi-omics data to discover precision medicine therapies and biomarkers in ADRD. Dr. Ertekin-Taner is a PI of AMP-AD and Resilience-AD and was a PI of M 2 OVE-AD consortia and Florida Consortium for African American AD Studies (FCA 3 DS). Dr. Ertekin-Taner has been continually funded by the National Institutes of Health and foundations, having served or serving as a Principal Investigator (PI) on 37 grants with total extramural grant support of about $80 million since 2008. Her lab is a leader in many national large-scale initiatives aiming to discover precision medicine therapies and biomarkers in Alzheimer's and related disorders. Owing to her prolific, impactful work, Dr. Ertekin-Taner serves on numerous executive committees, advisory boards and is a frequently invited-speaker. Ertekin-Taner is the recipient of numerous awards including the 2022 Alzheimer's Association Zenith Fellows Award. A board-certified neurologist, she continues to care for dementia patients. Dr. Ertekin-Taner is also a leader in education serving as Director and PI for Mayo Clinic Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCaTS) KL2 Mentored Career Development Program, as Founding Chair of the Mayo Clinic Research Pipeline K2R Program and as a mentor to over 80 trainees to date from various career stages.

Job Titles:

• Research Associate at the IU Center for Neuroimaging

Shiwei Liu is a postdoctoral research associate at the IU Center for Neuroimaging and the Indiana Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. In her current role, Shiwei utilizes her expertise in molecular biology and bioinformatics to investigate the mechanisms underlying Alzheimer's disease. With a focus on analyzing single nucleus sequencing data and multi-omics data, Shiwei employs cutting-edge techniques to integrate neuroimaging with other molecular data types. By adopting a multidimensional approach, she aims to gain comprehensive insights into the complex nature of neurodegenerative diseases and contribute to the advancement of the field. During her graduate studies at the University of Virginia, Shiwei focused on unraveling the genetic mechanisms underlying antimalarial resistance. She conducted extensive research on understanding the genetic variations in malaria parasites, employing a single-cell sequencing pipeline that she developed. Additionally, Shiwei contributed to the academic community by teaching Introduction to Biology Lab and Microbiology Lab at the University of Virginia. Apart from her research work, Shiwei is passionate about science outreach. She volunteered as a judge in the 2023 HSEF science fair in Indianapolis and dedicated her time to the Science Booth at the local Farmer's Market in Virginia to promote scientific awareness in 2022. Shiwei's abilities have been recognized through various previous awards and honors. She received the Summer Research Award in 2022 and the IGrant in 2018 from the Global Infectious Disease Institute at the University of Virginia. In 2019, Shiwei was honored with the Biology Distinguished Graduate Mentoring Award at the University of Virginia. Shiwei holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Virginia, a master's degree in Bioinformatics from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and a bachelor's degree in Plant Biotechnology from Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Job Titles:

• Chairman of Medical Research

Dr. Yunlong Liu is T. K. Li Chair for Medical Research, and a Chancellor's Professor of Medical and Molecular Genetics at Indiana University School of Medicine. He directs the Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, a research center with 27 principal investigators, and the Center for Medical Genomics, an Indiana CTSI-designated shared facility for next-generation sequencing, single-cell analytics, and spatial omics. Dr. Liu has extensive experience in developing computational and experimental methods in studying functions of genetic variants in complex diseases, designing methodologies on next generations sequencing technology, and understanding regulatory mechanisms and translational impact of alternative splicing in cancer and other diseases. Dr. Liu has over 300 publications in methodology development and applications in studying various levels of gene regulation. Dr. Liu's research program is supported by multiple grants investigating the roles of noncoding genetic variants on complex diseases including cancer and neurological disorders. In addition to my own research programs, he also serves as co-investigators on over a dozen of projects. Dr. Liu is also a leader in education, serving as the PI for an R25 grant supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). This program, Indiana Genomics Research Training Program for Data Scientists (INGEN4DS), is designed to provide practical training and hands-on research experience in genomics data analysis to prepare and encourage a diverse pool of talented data science master's degree students to enter the genomics workforce.