PROYECTO

Dr. Maria Luisa Gorno Tempini is a behavioral neurologist and holds the Charles Schwab Endowed Professorship in Dyslexia and Neurodevelopment. She currently directs the Language Neurobiology Laboratory at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and co-directs the UCSF Dyslexia Center. She obtained her medical degree and clinical neurology specialty training in Italy and has a doctorate in the neuroimaging of language from University College London.

Her clinical work concentrates on behavioral neurology across the lifespan, and her research investigates the neural basis of higher cognitive functions such as language and memory. Dr. Gorno Tempini has applied her expertise in cognitive neurology to neurodegenerative diseases, particularly primary progressive aphasia (PPA) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and to language-based learning differences, such as dyslexia. In 2011, Dr. Gorno Tempini’s NIH-funded research resulted in new diagnostic criteria for PPA and its variants.

In 2014, Dr. Gorno Tempini co-founded the UCSF Dyslexia Center, which aims to classify dyslexia into behavioral phenotypes defined by patterns of neuropsychological strengths and weaknesses. These efforts will lead to more targeted assessments and treatments amongst clinical and educational systems. The UCSF Dyslexia Center brings together neurologists, psychiatrists, biomedical engineers, radiologists, neuropsychologists, speech-language pathologists and research coordinators to discover structural and functional differences in the brains of children and older adults with dyslexia.

Dr. Gorno Tempini leads many projects at UCSF and is funded by the NIH and various philanthropic sources. She is particularly dedicated to mentoring and was awarded an NIH K24 grant to mentor interdisciplinary researchers in the field of clinical cognitive neuroscience.

Bruce L. Miller, MD, holds the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professorship in Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, directs the UCSF Memory and Aging Center and is a director of the Global Brain Health Institute. He is the principal investigator of the NIH-sponsored UCSF Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and program project grant on frontotemporal dementia. In addition, he helps lead the Tau Consortium and The Bluefield Foundation, precision medicine collaborations focused on developing treatments for tauopathies and progranulin-mediated forms of frontotemporal dementia.

Miller is a behavioral neurologist who studies the underlying mechanisms of neurocognitive disorders and is a world-renowned expert in the diagnosis and management of dementia. Until recently, most cases of dementia were classified as Alzheimer’s disease with little awareness of the importance of non-Alzheimer dementias. Miller’s description of changes in behavior, language and emotion in the setting of aging have improved the separation of various neurodegenerative diseases from one another, in particular Alzheimer’s disease from frontotemporal dementia. To support people after diagnosis, Miller has pioneered groundbreaking changes in the provision of care coordination for patients with dementia and their caregivers. His ongoing work includes overseeing a healthy aging program and an artist in residence program, both of which emphasize positive aspects of aging.

Miller has been featured in Fortune Magazine, The New York Times, 60 Minutes and the PBS Newshour. He has authored more than 1000 publications and written The Human Frontal Lobes, The Behavioral Neurology of Dementia, Frontotemporal Dementia and Finding the Right Words, a book on Alzheimer’s disease from the perspective of a daughter written with Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health Cynthia Weinstein, PhD. He has received many awards including the Potamkin Award from the American Academy of Neurology, the Elliot Royer Award from the San Francisco Neurological community, the Robert A. Fishman Award and Lecture, and the UCSF Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Miller’s extensive knowledge in clinical diagnosis, disease pathology, and brain-behavior relationships make him a widely sought-after teacher and mentor. He founded the Behavioral Neurology Fellowship at UCSF, oversees visits of more than 50 foreign scholars every year, and co-directs the Global Brain Health Institute, a training program for global leaders in brain health to reduce the scale and impact of dementia around the world. These international collaborations have fostered the development of new prevention and therapeutic approaches and have pushed researchers worldwide toward a more precise understanding of frontotemporal dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Shireen coordinates the HIV research program at the Memory and Aging Center, including a number of domestic and international protocols focused on studying the impact of HIV infection on cognition. She also supports the Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health and faculty within the Global Brain Health Institute to facilitate research studies aiming to understand neurodegeneration and test strategies to reduce the global impact of dementia.

Shireen previously worked in education, coordinating work-place-based mentorships for underserved middle school students. She earned a bachelor’s degree in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley and a post-baccalaureate certificate in Interdepartmental Medical Sciences from Drexel University. She has worked at the Memory and Aging Center since 2014.

Jennifer Yokoyama obtained her doctorate degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics from UCSF in December 2010 with Dr. Steven Hamilton (Department of Psychiatry and Institute for Human Genetics). Her dissertation comprised work within the Canine Behavioral Genetics Project, utilizing purebred dogs as genetic models for studying neuropsychiatric disease. Utilizing community-based canine DNA samples, Dr. Yokoyama performed genome-wide surveys for genetic loci underlying the canine anxiety disorder noise phobia, as well as for loci underlying adult-onset deafness in border collies.

Dr. Yokoyama is currently an Associate Professor at the Memory and Aging Center, where she is beginning a research program in neurogenetics of aging. Specifically, she is interested in the effect genotype can have on brain physiology, behavior and cognition in healthy older adults, and how this is related to increased vulnerability to (or protection from) neurodegenerative processes during aging. She is also particularly interested in understanding these effects in diverse ethnic populations. Dr. Yokoyama’s long-term goal is to understand how variation across the entire genome confers risk for particular types of neurodegeneration for purposes of early treatment and therapeutic intervention.

In 2020, Dr. Yokoyama received the Alzheimer’s Association Excellence in Neuroscience Mentoring Award in recognition of her mentorship, advocacy, sponsorship and guidance of trainees in her laboratory. And in 2021, she received the Mary Oakley Foundation Professorship in Neurodegeneration.

Natália Vieira is an international student from Brazil in her first year as a master’s student in the cell and molecular biology program at San Francisco State University. Her project is a partnership between the Health & Equity Research Lab at SF State and the Yokoyama Lab at UCSF.

She is currently studying Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in an admixed cohort, trying to predict the age of onset of AD. In addition to this research project, she is a member of the ReDLat team at UCSF. She is responsible for reviewing sample shipment manifests and managing shipping authorizations.

Dr. Nick Cochran obtained his undergraduate degree in 2010 from Auburn University where he conducted research with Douglas Martin, his PhD in neuroscience from UAB in 2015 where we trained with Erik Roberson, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in 2021 with Richard Myers at HudsonAlpha before continuing on as a Faculty Investigator at HudsonAlpha. Throughout his career, Nick has focused on contributing to research on Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. Current Cochran lab projects focus on: (1) right-sizing both genetic association studies in underrepresented populations and applying functional genomics approaches in a manner relevant to underrepresented populations to properly capture how genetic diversity both at the individual and population levels could influence the effects of genetic variation, (2) obtaining a detailed understanding of the regulation of neurodegeneration-associated genes to propose new therapeutic approaches, and (3) working towards a higher level of evidence for non-coding variation (with a focus on rare non-coding variation) to provide a toolbox to understand disease risk.

Kenneth S. Kosik, M.A. M.D. served as professor at the Harvard Medical School from 1996 until 2004 when he became the Harriman Professor and Co-Director of the Neuroscience Research Institute at UCSB. His awards include Whitaker Health Sciences Award (MIT), Milton Foundation Award (Harvard Medical School), Moore Award (American Association of Neuropathologists), Metropolitan Life Award, Derek Denny-Brown Award (American Neurological Association), Zenith and Temple Awards (Alzheimer’s Association), Ranwell Caputo Medal (Argentine Society of Neurochemistry), NASA Group Achievement Award to Neurolab Team, the Premio Aventis (Academia Nacional de Medicina, Colombia), Potamkin Prize for Research in Pick’s, Alzheimer’s and Related Diseases (2021), a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Santa Barbara Innovation Star Award.

He co-authored Outsmarting Alzheimer’s Disease and The Alzheimer’s Solution: How Today’s Care is Failing Millions and How We Can Do Better. His work on Tau pathology and his work in Colombia with the largest family in the world afflicted with familial Alzheimer’s has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New Yorker, BBC, CNN, PBS and CBS 60 Minutes. His 2016 University of California Santa Barbara commencement address archived at the Graduation Wisdom Best Commencement Speeches web site is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8OR81ucHyY.

Dr. Nilton Custodio is a neurologist interested in global approaches to neurodegenerative diseases with special interest in vulnerable (low education) and native (Aymara and Quechua) populations. He is medical director of the Peruvian Institute of Neurosciences. He trained as a clinical neurologist, obtained a Master’s degree in Medicine and a PhD in Neurosciences from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology (FAAN) since 2017. He has been president of the Peruvian Society of Neurology.

He has contributed to more than 100 scientific publications in high impact journals and is associate editor of different journals. In the last 5 years, he has obtained research funding from different international associations such as Alzheimer’s Association, National Institute of Health/National Institute of Aging, and MRC (UK).
He is a founding member of the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium on Dementia (LAC-CD) and of important regional initiatives, such as the Multi-partner Consortium to expand dementia research in Latin America (ReDLat), Genetics in Alzheimer’s Peruvian Population (GAPP), Iniciativa Latinoamericana de intervención para prevenir el deterioro cognitivo (LatAm fingers) and Innovations using mHealth for People with Dementia and Co-Morbidity and their Carers (IMPACT).

Elisa Resende received her medical school training from the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil. She received her PhD in Neuroscience at the same University. Elisa did her residency in Neurology at the Hospital das Clínicas-UFMG/EBSERH. After one year of fellowship in Behavioral Neurology and Movement Disorders, she joined the hospital staff as assistant physician. She is an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health and teaches behavioral neurology at Faculdade de Medicina de Ciências Médicas de Minas Gerais

Dr. Takada is a behavioral neurologist, trained at University of Sao Paulo in Brazil and at UCSF Memory and Aging Center, USA (as a visiting scholar). He obtained his PhD in 2015, in which he studied monogenic forms of FTD in Brazil. His main research interests are monogenic forms of early-onset dementia (particularly AD and FTD) and the development of apps to improve quality of life in patients with mild cognitive impairment and dementia.

Graduated in Psychology from Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Master and PhD in Sciences from the Department of Neurology at HCFMUSP, specialist in Neuropsychology, Global Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Heath at GBHI. She is currently a researcher at the Cognitive and Behavior Neurology Group (GNCC) at HCFMUSP and at the Cognitive Disorders Reference Center (CEREDIC) at HCFMUSP, Neuropsychologist at Hospital Santa Marcelina, member of ReD-Lat project and associated editor of Dementia & Neuropsychologia Journal.

https://lattes.cnpq.br/6934310043474462
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-8423-9876

https://www.gbhi.org/profiles/maira-okada-de-oliveira

Dr. Avila-Funes (MD, PhD) is an undergraduate and graduate professor of geriatrics and his main line of research is frailty and cognitive decline. He is a researcher associate of the ACTIVE team (U1219) of the INSERM (France).

He is a member of the national system of researchers and of the National Academy of Medicine of Mexico as well as the Latin American Academy of Medicine for the Older Adults.

He is currently the leader of the geriatric service at the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition Salvador Zubirán in Mexico City.

Dr. Lopera is a physician, neurologist and professor at the University of Antioquia with a subspecialty in neuropediatrics from the Catholic University of Louvain. As a medical resident in the 1980’s, he was led by curiosity to spend many weekends visiting small towns to speak to patients suffering from dementia without realizing that he would eventually map the world’s largest population with early onset familial Alzheimer’s linked to a mutation in the presenilin 1 gene. Dr. Lopera’s friendly, charismatic personality earned him the trust of patients and families, an accomplishment that has been as important as the science behind this story.

As Chief of the Neuroscience Group of Antioquia (GNA), he and his lab investigate neurodegenerative diseases and treat patients with Alzheimer’s Disease, CADASIL, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, Frontotemporal Dementia and other forms of dementia. He is the principal investigator of the first preventive clinical trial in Colombia for Alzheimer’s disease called API Colombia. His work has been instrumental in gaining the recognition and funding for the creation of an International Center for Clinical Trials in Medellin which will be inaugurated in 2022. He has received numerous awards, including the Alejandro Ángel Escobar Award for exact, physical and natural sciences in 1997 and 2013; and the Bengt Winblad Lifetime Achievement Award by the Alzheimer’s Association in 2020.

Psychologist with graduate studies in Experimental Neuropsychology. Professor at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Faculty of Medicine, in Bogotá-Colombia since 1986. Currently Full Professor since 2008. Main experience field is as a clinical Neuropsychologist and researcher focused on studies directed to understand cognition in normal aging driving population studies that include mental health social cognition domains. Along with the later, sequelae of neurological, psychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases such as early onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and non-AD dementias, mostly Frontotemporal dementia FTD, are her main areas of research and clinical practice. Since 1992, along with her colleagues, created the Memory and Cognition Clinic Center (MCC-Intellectus) at the University San Ignacio´s Hospital of the Javeriana University. Today at that center more than 45 new subjects, a week, go under an interdisciplinary consensus-based diagnosis and management board. Since 2008, until today, she has had the opportunity to investigate early onset FTD dementia trough University, and two Fogarty Grants, have allowed her to lead the early identification of interesting genetics associated with FTD in Colombia. It is intended that one of the main contributions to the Red Lat project is the way in which patients and families are studied throughout the Colombian territory.

Agustin Ibanez is an Argentinean neuroscientist interested in global approaches to dementia and social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience. He is full professor and Director of the Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat) at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (UAI, Chile), Associate Research Professor at GBHI-Trinity College Dublin, and Team Leader of Predictive Brain Health Modelling Group, Trinity College Dublin. Also, he is a Senior Atlantic Fellow at GBHI-UCSF and senior researcher at UdeSA. Agustin holds a track record with +300 publications, including top-ten journals (e.g., Lancet Neurology, World Psychiatry, Nature Reviews Neurology, Nature Human Behavior, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Trends in Neuroscience, JAMA Neurology, Alzheimer’s & Dementia, Neuron, Brain). He has received funding from the NIH, Alzheimer’s Association, Tau Consortium, GBHI, Takeda, the Inter-American Development Bank(IDB), ANID (Chile), COLCIENCIAS (Colombia), DAAD (Germany), MRC (United Kingdom), and CONICET (Argentina). He is the founder of the critical regional initiatives, such as the Multi-partner consortium to expand dementia research in Latin America (ReDLat) and the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium on Dementia (LAC-CD). His work has been highlighted in the BBC, Nature, Nature News, Discovery Channel, Popular Science, Daily Mail, Newsweek, Le Monde, and Oxford University Press, among others.

Dr. Adolfo García specializes in language neurosciences. He is Director of the Center for Cognitive Neurosciences of the University of San Andrés, Senior Atlantic Fellow of the GBHI (UCSF), Researcher of the USACH and CONICET, honorary member of the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience of the ULL (Spain), and High Level Talent designated by the Ministry of Science of China. He is also President of the TREC Network.
Adolfo has received funding from institutions in the US (GBHI, Alzheimer’s Association), Chile (ANID, BrainLat), Colombia (COLCIENCIAS), the European Union (Network of European Institutes for Advanced Study), among others. Since 2023, he has been co-leading an NIH R01 project to detect linguistic markers of dementia, within the framework of ReDLat. He is also the creator of Include, an international network of cross-linguistic studies in brain health; and the Toolkit to Examine Lifelike Language (TELL), a web application for language assessments.
In addition, he has published more than 12 books, 30 chapters, and 180 articles in leading international journals. He has also made more than 250 presentations at academic events and multiple scientific outreach activities. His work has been awarded by internationally recognized institutions. You can find more information about Adolfo on his website.

Dean of the School of Medicine-UBA. He is Doctor of Medicine (University of Buenos Aires-UBA) and Doctor of Philosophy. Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health of the Faculty of Medicine, UBA.

Neurologist and Psychiatrist, Argentine researcher and educator specialized in cognitive neuroscience and philosophy of mind. Dean of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires. Director of the Alzheimer Center and Cognitive Functions UBA. He is a researcher at CONICET and directs the Alzheimer Argentina Association. Author of numerous books and multiple articles in high impact journals.

María ​Eugenia Godoy has a degree in Government and International Relations from the Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (UADE). After that, she obtained a Master Degree in Institutional Communication Management at the Universidad de Ciencias Empresariales (UCES). Then, she extended her training in Project Management at the Universidad tecnológica Nacional (UTN).
Currently, she is Program Manager of the NIH/NIR R01: “Multi-Partner Consortium to Expand Dementia Research in Latin America (ReDLat)”. She is also in charge of managing international grants and local grants. She has strong experience in international applications.
Previously, she worked as coordinator of Bilateral Cooperation at the National Directorate for Institutional Integration and Cooperation of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation of Argentina.
She has participated in international negotiations such as: Annual LAC NCPs meeting ALCUANET (Bridgetown, Barbados), High-Level Meeting (South Africa), Seminar on Fusion of Business Culture between China and Argentina (Beijing-Shanghái-Qingdao, China), Russian-Argentine Joint Commission on Economic-Commercial and Scientific- Technical Cooperation (Moscow, Russia).

Agustin Ibanez is an Argentinean neuroscientist interested in global approaches to dementia and social, cognitive, and affective neuroscience. He is full professor and Director of the Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat) at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (UAI, Chile), Associate Research Professor at GBHI-Trinity College Dublin, and Team Leader of Predictive Brain Health Modelling Group, Trinity College Dublin. Also, he is a Senior Atlantic Fellow at GBHI-UCSF and senior researcher at UdeSA. Agustin holds a track record with +300 publications, including top-ten journals (e.g., Lancet Neurology, World Psychiatry, Nature Reviews Neurology, Nature Human Behavior, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Trends in Neuroscience, JAMA Neurology, Alzheimer’s & Dementia, Neuron, Brain). He has received funding from the NIH, Alzheimer’s Association, Tau Consortium, GBHI, Takeda, the Inter-American Development Bank(IDB), ANID (Chile), COLCIENCIAS (Colombia), DAAD (Germany), MRC (United Kingdom), and CONICET (Argentina). He is the founder of the critical regional initiatives, such as the Multi-partner consortium to expand dementia research in Latin America (ReDLat) and the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium on Dementia (LAC-CD). His work has been highlighted in the BBC, Nature, Nature News, Discovery Channel, Popular Science, Daily Mail, Newsweek, Le Monde, and Oxford University Press, among others.

Claudia Duran-Aniotz is a neuroscientist fully dedicated to understand neurodegenerative disorders with special emphasis in Alzheimer’s disease.
Since, early diagnosis and biomarkers research are areas poorly developed in Latin America countries, she has focused her work to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia affecting this particular population contributing to diminish the major economical and social costs associated with brain health disorders. Her research and academic interests are aligned to provide a useful platform to generate new knowledge and link basic and clinical research, promoting high translational discoveries and clinical collaborations. Her projects encourage the consolidation of a research group to study the neuropathological, clinical and translational research in Alzheimer’s disease. Currently, Dr. Duran-Aniotz is assistant professor and co-Director of Latin American Brain Health Institute (BrainLat) at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez (UAI) and she is also actively involved to regional initiatives, including the Multi-partner consortium to expand dementia research in Latin America (ReDLat) as member of the specimen handling group and the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium on Dementia (LAC-CD) as a member of the Biomarkers framework.

Rodrigo Ortega is Psychologist (Universidad Central de Chile), Master in Neurobiology and Ph.D. in Psychology (Universidad de Chile). With extensive professional experience in interdisciplinary research in Neuroscience. He has worked in large public and private funded projects in Cognitive Neuroscience, as a researcher and in other administrative positions. He has participated in the setup of several neurophysiological laboratories and has advanced skills in electrophysiological and eye-tracking data collection and analysis. Since July 2021, he is Program Manager at BrainLat.

María Eugenia Godoy has a degree in Government and International Relations (UADE). She has a Master’s Degree in Institutional Communication Management (UCES) and a specialization in Project Management from the National Technological University.

She has also completed a postgraduate course in Scientific Diplomacy applied to neurosciences (UNESCO) and has completed an Intensive Postgraduate Course on Global Brain Health at the University of Chile.

She is currently project manager of the Multi-Partner Consortium to expand Dementia Research in Latin America (ReDLat) and is in charge of the integral management of international governmental, philanthropic and industrial projects. She also serves as an international consultant at the Latin American Institute of Brain Health (BrainLat), Universidad Adolfo Ibañez (Chile).

She has been working for more than 15 years in the field of Science, Technology and Innovation, participating in the development of partnerships and projects on an international scale. He has extensive experience in the management and management of consortia projects as well as in the participation in international negotiations.

Andrea Slachevsky, neurologist, PhD in neurosciences Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris VI, France. Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile. Principal Investigator of the Center for Geroscience, Mental Health and Metabolism (GERO). Coordinator Memory Unit, Memory and Neuropsychiatry Center (CMYN), Neurology Service, Hospital del Salvador, Faculty of Medicine, University of Chile Neurologist, Clínica Alemana Vice President and creator of Coprad (Corporación Profesional de Alzheimer y Otras Demencias), a non-governmental, non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

Member of the board of directors of the Global Brain Health Institute. She participated in the development of the National Dementia Plan in Chile and in the creation of one of the memory units implemented in the context of Chile’s national dementia plan. 

Her line of research focuses on neuropsychological and functionality in aging and neurocognitive disorders. She has published more than 100 articles and more than 20 book chapters. She has written or edited four books, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. Manual for relatives and caregivers, Neuropsychology. Neural basis of mental processes, , Tratado de Neuropsicología, Cerebro Cotidiano and Manual de buenas prácticas para el diagnóstico de demencias

María Isabel Behrens, MD PhD, Full Professor at the University of Chile, neurologist and researcher dedicated to the study of the molecular mechanisms of dementia, especially the inverse relationship between Alzheimer’s disease and cancer. She was director of the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery (2017-2019) Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile, and is currently director of the Center for Advanced Clinical Research (CICA)-Hospital Clínico Universidad de Chile. She is Principal Investigator of a Regular FONDECYT project and a FONDEF, among other collaborative works in progress. He leads a pre-clinical study to explore a new therapy for Alzheimer’s disease. She has directed 9 projects as principal investigator, and 14 as co-investigator or associate, with 92 scientific publications. He does translational research and teaches both in the neurology clinic and in the direction of master’s and doctoral theses. Member of committees of various doctorates from the University of Chile. Awarded the “2019 Medical Research Award” and incorporated as a corresponding member of the Chilean Academy of Medicine. He constantly gives lectures on Alzheimer’s and other dementias in postgraduate courses at different universities and in the media. Dr. Behrens has a network of national and international collaborators.