Michael W. Weiner to speak at CNS Diseases World Summit Sept 13-14 San Francisco

Top Quote Michael W. Weiner, Professor at UCSF and Director at DVA Medical Center San Francisco will give a featured presentation at the 6th Neurodegenerative Conditions Research and Development conference (Sep 13-14, 2012 • San Francisco, CA). End Quote
  • San Francisco, CA (1888PressRelease) July 24, 2012 - Michael W. Weiner, M.D., Professor at UCSF and Director at DVA Medical Center San Francisco will give a featured presentation on "Biomarkers for Clinical Diagnosis, Early Detection and Monitoring the Progression of Alzheimer's Disease for Clinical Trials: The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI)" at the 6th Neurodegenerative Conditions Research and Development conference taking place on Sept 13-14, 2012 in San Francisco, CA.

    The goal of ADNI (from 2004-2010) is to determine the value of MRI and PET imaging together with blood and CSF biomarkers for disease modifying Alzheimer's treatment trials. In the initial project, Dr. Weiner longitudinally studied: MCI (n= 400); AD (n= 200); Controls (n= 220) with clinical visits, neuropsychological assessments, MRI (1.5 T), FDG PET blood and urine and CSF. He found that the rate of hippocampal atrophy had high statistical power for measuring change over time. Fata from the normal controls suggests that normal healthy elders with APOE4 and/or low CSF A? amyloid have worse memory scores and higher rates of hippocampal atrophy, consistent with the hypothesis that some controls have preclinical AD pathology. Similar ADNI-like projects, with similar methods, are underway in Australia, Japan, Europe, China, Taiwan, and Korea leading to the "World Wide ADNI network." ADNI 2 (total funding for all ADNI projects now $140 million) is now underaway with m 3Tesla MRI and F18 amyloid PET imaging with Florbetapir on an additional 150 controls, 300 subjects with early MCI, 150 subjects with late MCI and 150 subjects with dementia due to AD. ADNI methods are now widely used in clinical treatment trials, and have led to the development of the "new" research criteria for AD developed by the Alzheimer's Association and NIH.

    In 1980 Dr. Weiner performed the first experiment using implanted coils to obtain 31P NMR spectra from the kidney of living rats, beginning his work using NMR/MRI for research. Since1980 he has been at the San Francisco VA/UCSF. He is currently Director of the Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases. He is Professor of Radiology, Medicine, Psychiatry, and Neurology at UCSF. He has published over 600 peer reviewed scientific papers. His grants include studies of Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia, frontotemporal dementia, HIV/AIDS, gulf war illness, posttraumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, epilepsy, and other neurodegenerative conditions. He is the Principal Investigator of: the NIA funded Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI)/Grand Opportunities (GO) Grant, and the renewal of ADNI (total funding over $150 million for these 3 grants). Recently he was awarded a grant from the DOD entitled Effects of traumatic brain injury and post traumatic stress disorder on Alzheimer's disease (AD) in Veterans using ADNI. In 2006 Dr. Weiner was awarded the Middleton Award, for outstanding research in the VA. In 2010 he was awarded the Gold Medal of Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse France, and the Gold Medal of the city of Toulouse, France. In 2011 he accepted the Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Award from the Alzheimer's Association on behalf of ADNI.

    GTC's 6th Neurodegenerative Conditions Research and Development conference brings together leading scientists and experts to discuss the latest breakthroughs, new drug targets, new models, the development of new biomarkers, imaging modalities, and several other novel developments and therapeutics to combat neurodegenerative conditions. The conference is also a part of the 2nd CNS Diseases World Summit, which has four parallel tracks that focus on neurodegenerative conditions, neuropsychiatric disorders, pain research and therapeutics and CNS partneriing and deal-making.

    Join your colleagues at this exciting Neurodegenerative Conditions conference and CNS Diseases summit, and hear from and meet with key representatives in the field including Charles B. Nemeroff at University of Miami, Husseini Manji - Global Head of Neuroscience Therapeutic at Janssen, Stephen Brannan - VP at Takeda, Barry Brand - Chief Executive Officer at CeNeRx, Michael W. Weiner at UCSF, George Garibaldi - SVP and Global Head of Neuroscience Development at F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Marcelle Bergeron at Elan, Beth J. Hoffman - VP at Targacept, Li Gan at Gladstone Institute, and many more!

    For more information, please visit www.gtcbio.com

    ###
space
space
  • FB Icon Twitter Icon In-Icon
Contact Information