Daniela Noain, PhD
Daniela is a principal investigator in the Neurology Department at University Hospital Zurich and a member of the Steering Committee at the Neuroscience Center Zurich, University of Zurich. As a graduate student with Marcelo Rubinstein at the University of Buenos Aires, she studied dopaminergic receptor localization and function. She later relocated to Europe to combine her long-standing passion for neurodegeneration research with studies in sleep neurophysiology.
Marc Oeller, PhD
Marc is a postdoctoral researcher and Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Professor Matthias Mann's laboratory. He studied Chemistry in Bonn, Germany and completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK, focusing on protein solubility and developing computational tools to predict protein behavior. Marc's current research combines single-cell and spatial proteomics using Deep Visual Proteomics to investigate the molecular mechanisms of Parkinson's Disease, aiming to identify potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets through spatially resolved proteomic analyses.
Laura Parkkinen, PhD
Dr Laura Parkkinen is Professor of Translational Neuropathology at the University of Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences and Director of the Oxford Brain Bank. With 20 years of experience in neuropathological research and diagnosis, she specialises in neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Her internationally recognised Translational Neuropathology Group investigates molecular mechanisms of these disorders to identify new biomarkers and therapeutic targets. This work is supported by Parkinson’s UK, Michael J. Fox Foundation, NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre and National Institute of Health. She also contributes to several neurodegenerative projects within the GSK–Institute of Molecular and Computational Medicine program.
Chao Peng, PhD
Chao is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology, University of California Los Angeles. His research focuses on exploring the genetic and environmental risk factors that modulate the transmission of pathological alpha-synuclein and tau in neurodegenerative diseases. He develops cutting edge disease models and applies powerful genetic, multi-omics, structural and high through-put screen methods to investigate the molecular mechanisms regulating the transmission process and explore the conformational diversity of pathological alpha-synuclein and tau in diseased brain. He also develops novel strategies to block the transmission process of pathological proteins in neurodegenerative diseases as potential future therapies for these diseases.
Marina Romero-Ramos, PhD
Marina is a Professor in the Dept of Biomedicine at the Health Faculty, Aarhus University, and a funding member of the Lundbeck Foundation Parkinson’s disease Research Center (PACE) at the Aarhus University Hospital. Since her PhD, at the University of Seville (Spain), Marina has developed research focused on Parkinson's disease. During the last decade she became especially interested on the immune aspect of the disease and how this influences the neruodegenerative process. Marina is also a member of the Board of Directors of the World Parkinson coalition.
David Root, PhD
Dave is an Associate Professor and Boettcher Investigator in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at University of Colorado, Boulder. As a graduate student at Rutgers University in Mark West's lab, he studied the neurophysiology of drug-seeking behavior. As a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Marisela Morales's lab, he identified subtypes of ventral tegmental area neurons, as well as some of their circuits and behavioral functions.
Benjamin Ryskeldi-Falcon, PhD
Benjamin established his group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in 2019. As a graduate student with Michel Goedert, he investigated molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the prion-like propagation of tau pathology, receiving a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Cambridge. Benjamin subsequently carried out a postdoc with Michel Goedert and Sjors Scheres at the LMB, where he helped to determine the first structures of pathological protein assemblies in neurodegenerative diseases using electron cryo-microscopy (cryo-EM). Benjamin is a Young Investigator at the European Molecular Biology Organisation and a Co-investigator at the UK Dementia Research Institute. Among his awards are the Vallee Scholar Award and the Biochemical Society Colworth Medal.
Sjors Scheres, PhD
Sjors is a group leader at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK, where he also jointly heads the Structural Studies Division with Lori Passmore. He studied Chemsitry at Utrecht University in The Netherlands, and he did a postdoc at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnologia in Madrid Spain, before setting up his group in Cambridge. He is a fellow of the UK Royal Society and the UK Academy of Medical Sciences.
Jens Schwamborn, PhD
Jens is a Professor at the University of Luxembourg / Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) and expert in human iPSC-based disease modeling, with a particular focus on Parkinson’s disease and neurodegenerative disorders. He has pioneered the development of human midbrain organoids, assembloids, and chimeroids that incorporate neuronal and glial components to study complex, human-specific disease mechanisms, and his work integrates stem cell biology, neurobiology, and single-cell technologies to bridge fundamental discovery with translational neuroscience.
Andrew Sharott, PhD
Andrew is a Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and Associate Director of the MRC Center of Excellence in Restorative Neural Dynamics. He studied the role of neural oscillations in movement disorders as a PhD student with Peter Brown at the Institute of Neurology, University College London.
Richard Smeyne, PhD
Rich is Professor and Chair of the Department of Neuroscience at Thomas Jefferson University and director of the Jefferson Comprehensive Parkinson’s Disease Center. He received his Ph.D. in Neuroanatomy in 1989 followed with postdoctoral training at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology where he pioneered early studies of transgenesis; generating the first inducible transgenic mouse (c-fos-lacZ) that expressed a cellular marker based on the cognate expression of its promoter. The first 10 years of his career were spent in Pharma (BMS and Hoffman-LaRoche) followed by 30 years in Academia. He was the first awardee of the Parkinson Foundation's Impact Award and has also received the Healthcare Impact award from the city of Philadelphia.
Claudio Soto, PhD
Dr. Soto is the Huffington Distinguished University Chair, Professor of Neurology and Director of the Mitchell Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Brain Disorders at The University of Texas at Houston. For the past 30 years, he has been studying neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s and prion diseases and has made several important discoveries both to the basic science understanding of these diseases and to the translation of this knowledge into novel strategies for treatment and early diagnosis. He invented and developed the Seed Amplification Assay (SAA) for ultra-sensitive detection of misfolded proteins. Dr. Soto has published more than 250 papers, some in highly prestigious scientific journals, which have been cited more than 38,000 times (H-index 96).
Stephen Strittmatter, MD, PhD
Steve is Chair and Professor of Neuroscience and Coates Professor of Neurology. He directs the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience and Yale Alzheimer Disease Research Center. He identified the Nogo Receptor limiting axon regrowth after injury and developed a blocker to promote recovery from spinal cord trauma. He also identified an Aß oligomer receptor complex containing Prion Protein and metabotropic glutamate receptor 5 (mGluR5). This pathway mediates synapse and memory loss in Alzheimer’s models, and is being tested in clinic trials. Authoring over 300 reports, he was awarded the King Faisal International Prize in Medicine and other honors.
Aleksandar Videnovic, MD
Aleks is a Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Chief of the Division of Sleep Neurology in the Mass General Brigham Department of Neurology, and Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Program on Sleep, Circadian Biology, and Neurodegeneration. Aleks has devoted his research to the interface of sleep, circadian biology, and brain health, biomarker discovery in neurodegenerative disorders, and the development of new therapies for neurological disorders.
David Walt, PhD
David is the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Bioinspired Engineering at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a HHMI Professor. He is the Scientific Founder of Illumina Inc., Quanterix Corp., and multiple other life sciences startups. David’s awards include the 2021 Kabiller Prize in Nanoscience and Nanomedicine and the 2023 National Academy of Engineering’s Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize. He is a member/fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, U.S. National Academy of Medicine, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is inducted in the US National Inventors Hall of Fame. In 2025, he received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation from President Biden.
Catherine Weindel, PhD
Chi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Tulane University School of Medicine. As a graduate student she studied the role of autophagy in autoimmunity at Tufts University. As a postdoctoral associate at Texas A&M Health Science Center she extended her interest in chronic inflammation to PD focusing on immune activation and cell death occurring in LRRK2 variant macrophages during Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection.
Benjamin Wolozin, MD, PhD
Ben is a Professor at Boston University in the Dept. of Anatomy & Neurobiology. Ben is also co-founder and CSO of Aquinnah Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is a developing chemical therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases. Dr. Wolozin obtained his B.A. from Wesleyan University, M.D., Ph.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he did his PhD in the laboratory of Peter Davies. His research focuses on the pathophysiology of neurodegenerative diseases, investigating how interactions between the stress response and RNA lead to neuronal injury and dementia. Dr. Wolozin is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and has received multiple awards including the Donald B. Lindsley Prize (SFN), the Zenith Award (Alz Assn) and the Spivak Award (BU).
Yang Yang, PhD
Yang Yang is an Assistant Professor at the Van Andel Institute, where her research focuses on the structural biology of α-synuclein and its role in Parkinson’s disease and related synucleinopathies. Using cryo-EM, she has determined the structures of postmortem α-synuclein filaments. Her work has contributed to defining disease-relevant α-synuclein filament architectures and to understanding how molecular cofactors and co-pathologies influence aggregation and seeding. Her long-term goal is to link α-synuclein structures to disease mechanism, enabling structure-based approaches to diagnosis and therapy in synucleinopathies.
Alexandra Young, PhD
Alexandra Young, PhD, is a Principal Research Fellow at University College London (UCL) with a background in mathematics and computer science. Her research focuses on developing data-driven models of disease progression, particularly in neurodegenerative diseases. She is particularly interested in developing and applying techniques to characterise the heterogeneity of diseases through data-driven phenotyping, subtyping, and identification of mixed pathology.
Fides Zenk, PhD
Fides holds the NeuroNA Chair in Epigenomics of Neurodevelopmental disorders at EPFL, where she leads a research group studying chromatin regulation in human brain development, aging, and neurodegenerative disease. She trained in molecular biology and epigenetics and established her independent laboratory focusing on single-cell epigenomic technologies and human stem cell–derived brain models. Her work has been supported by competitive international funding and has contributed to fundamental insights into epigenetic regulation of the human brain and early embryonic development.
