Alzheimer's Clinical Trials Consortium

Christopher van Dyck, MD

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Christopher van Dyck serves as Co-Chair for the Protocol Evaluation Committee (PEC) and is a member of the Executive Committee for the ACTC. He is also Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Neuroscience and Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Unit at the Yale School of Medicine, and the Project Director for the CT1812 study. Dr. van Dyck is a graduate of Yale College and Northwestern University Medical School. He completed his residency in psychiatry, fellowship in geriatric psychiatry, and research fellowship in neuroimaging before joining the faculty at Yale. Dr. van Dyck is a recognized leader in the neuroimaging and therapeutics of Alzheimer’s disease and healthy aging. He is also Principal Investigator on grants from the National Institutes of Health, the pharmaceutical industry, and a number of private foundations and has authored more than 200 papers and reviews. Finally, Dr. van Dyck is extremely committed to advancing the cause of Alzheimer’s patients and their families on the local and national level. As Chairman of the Medical Scientific Advisory Committee for the Connecticut Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, he is intimately involved with local program development, advocacy, and education. He received the Alzheimer’s Association’s “Compassion and Cure” Award for 2005 and “Leader in Advancing Research” Award for 2017.

Bruno Vellas, MD

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Bruno Vellas serves as Co-Chair for the ACTC Non-Pharmacological Interventions Committee. Dr. Vellas is the chair of the Gérontopôle & Department of Geriatric Internal Medicine at the Toulouse University Hospital and is member of INSERM UMR 1027. He studied medicine in Toulouse and received the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1987 and a PhD in Pysiopathology in 1990. He had a doctoral training in nutrition and aging at the University of New Mexico, USA, Clinical Nutrition Lab, School of Medicine from 1987 to 1988. His main interests are: development of aging and geriatric clinical research and care. His research and care has been supported by several European, national and international research grants. He is the founder of the Gérontopôle to develop innovation and research for older adults. He is the author and co-author of more than 800 publications in peer review journals since 1987, Index H: 75. He serves as editor, editorial committee member and reviewer of several major journals. He is adjunct professor at the Department of Internal Medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA and is member of the scientific advisory board of several major scientific institutions in France, EU, Japan and the US. Since 2016, he is titular member of the French National Academy of Medicine, Officier de la Légion d’Honneur, and was recipient of the Palmes Académiques in 2016. He is the past president of the IAGG (International Association of Gerontology and Geriatrics) a NGO with a seat at the United Nations, and the founder of the EADC (European Alzheimer’s Disease Consortium), the CTAD (Clinical Trial in Alzheimer’s Disease conference) and the ICFSR (International Conference for Frailty and Sarcopenia Research). He is the chair of the WHO Collaborating Center for Frailty, Clinical Research and Geriatric Training since September 2017. Lastly, Bruno VELLAS is Principal Investigator of the INSPIRE program in the field of Gerosciences.

Bradley Boeve, MD

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Co-Chair, Non-AD Dementia Committee. Dr. Boeve is a consultant in the Department of Neurology and Center for Sleep Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and is Professor of Neurology in the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. He is recognized with the distinction of the Little Family Foundation Professorship in Lewy Body Dementia. He also serves as Chair of the Division of Behavioral Neurology. His clinical and research interests include MCI/AD as well as the non-Alzheimer’s degenerative dementias, with particular interests in the frontotemporal lobar degeneration-spectrum disorders (e.g., FTD+/-ALS, PPA, CBS, PSP) and Lewy body disease-spectrum disorders (e.g., DLB, PDD, RBD+MCI, and RBD). He is a member of the Medical Advisory Council of the Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration, the International Society for Frontotemporal Dementias, the FTD Prevention Initiative, the Scientific Advisory Council of the Lewy Body Dementia Association (LBDA), the LBDA Research Centers of Excellence Program, and International REM Sleep Behavior Disorder Study Group. He is co-PI or co-I on several national/international consortia focused on FTLD- and LBD-spectrum disorders. He is funded by the NIH, the Little Family Foundation, and the Mangurian Foundation.

Suzanne Craft, PhD

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Suzanne Craft, PhD, is Co-Chair of the ACTC Site Metrics and Study Budgets Committee (SBSMC) and a Site Member PI on the ACTC Steering Committee.  She also serves on the Project Evaluation Committee and as a Site Member PI representative on the ACTC Executive Committee.  She is professor of Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine at Wake Forest University as well as at the Hypertension and Vascular Research Center. Dr. Craft studied at the University of Texas – Austin and Interned at the VA Medical Center in Boston.  Her fellowships were in Neuropsychology at Boston University School of medical and Harvard medical school.  She is a member of the International Neuropsychological Society and the Society for Neuroscience. Dr. Craft’s research has centered around Alzheimer’s disease, Cognition disorders, Dementia, Diet, Insulin and Insulin Resistance.

Keith Johnson, MD

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Keith Johnson, M.D., leads the ACTC PET Imaging Unit, and is a Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School and Director of Molecular Neuroimaging in the Department of Radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Johnson has extensive experience in imaging research in neurodegenerative diseases, is a PI of the Harvard Aging Brain Study, and oversees the brain PET imaging program at MGH, which includes active research programs in imaging of amyloid-beta and PHF tau. Dr. Johnson leads the PET component of the A4 Study, as well as several other AD clinical trials. In addition, Dr. Johnson is a practicing Neurologist, Associate Physician in Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Associate Neurologist in the Division of Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He oversees the Clinical Brain PET Service at the MGH.

Bradley Hyman, MD, PhD

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Dr. Hyman serves as Co-Lead for the ACTC Neuropathology Unit, and serves on the Project Evaluation Committee (PEC).  He is the John B. Penney, Jr. Professor of Neurology at Harvard University.  His laboratory studies the anatomical and molecular basis of dementia in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. Approaches focus on transgenic mouse models and human neuropathological samples, using advanced microscopy techniques for in vivo longitudinal imaging, direct imaging on neuropathological processes including cell death, and functional imaging including in vivo assessment of calcium reporters. Quantitative approaches have been developed to apply to clinical pathological and genotype/phenotype analyses. Recent studies have developed the use of multiphoton microscopy for in vivo anatomical and functional imaging in transgenic mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease and the utilization of gene transfer techniques to introduce potentially disease-modifying genes into specific cortical regions. We have also developed fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) approaches to allow observation of protein-protein interactions with subcellular resolution, both in vitro and in vivo. These techniques are utilized to examine the alterations that occur in Alzheimer’s disease brain, and in mouse models expressing genetic mutants that are linked to Alzheimer’s disease.