Agenda: Alzheimer's Disease Research Summit 2015

Recommendations from 2015 Summit (5/1/2015)

Alzheimer's Disease Research Implementation Milestones 2013-2025 (PDF, 127K)

View videocast of 2015 Summit:

Speaker Biographies (PDF, 4.2M)

Background

DAY ONE – February 9, 2015

7:00am - 8:00am REGISTRATION

8:00am - 8:15am

Introductory Remarks - Francis Collins (NIH Director)

8:15am - 8:30am

NAPA Research Milestones: Process and Progress - Richard Hodes (NIA Director)

8:30am - 9:30am Plenary Lectures

Socioeconomic Burden of AD: Update on National and International Trends - Kenneth Langa (University of Michigan)
Socioeconomic Burden of AD: Update on Global Trends with a Focus on Developing and Under-Developed Countries: Implications for Research - Martin Prince (King’s College London)
Deconstructing the Complexity of AD – David Bennett (Rush University)

9:30am - 11:45am Session I: Interdisciplinary Research to Understand the Heterogeneity and Multifactorial Etiology of Alzheimer’s Disease

The transformation of biology into a data-intensive science and the availability of large scale molecular, clinic-pathologic, phenotypic, and other types of relevant patient data offer unprecedented opportunities for understanding the complexity of the disease process and advancing diagnostics and treatments and bring unique challenges related to data sharing and integration. This session will address:

key research questions related to understanding the complex biology of AD such as the role of cerebral microvasculature and inflammation
approaches, tools and technologies needed to identify and quantify the variety of disease trajectories and phenotypes of risk and to translate genetic and epidemiological information into mechanistic insight
issues related to harnessing the power of Big Data and ensuring the transparency, reproducibility and translatability of basic research

Chairs: Kelly Bales (Pfizer), Roberta Diaz Brinton (University of Southern California)

Speakers: 9:30am – 10:20am

Roberta Diaz Brinton (University of Southern California)
Understanding Bioenergetic Compromise and Gender-Related Phenotypes of AD Risk

Phil De Jager (Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard)
Integrative Approaches to Understand Inflammatory Mechanisms of AD

Berislav Zlokovic (Keck School of Medicine at USC)
Role of Microvasculature in AD and Related Dementias

Panelists: 10:20am - 10:55am

Bradley Hyman (Harvard University)
Gerard Schellenberg (University of Pennsylvania)
Joel Dudley (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)
Gareth Howell (Jackson Labs)
Li-Huei Tsai (MIT)
Lawrence Goldstein (University of California, San Diego)
Kelly Bales (Pfizer)

Moderated Discussion: 10:55am – 11:45am

LUNCH 11:45am – 12:45pm

12:45pm - 3:00pm Session II: Transforming AD Therapy Development: from Targets to Trials

We are in the midst of a transformation of the linear, target-based drug development paradigm into one with a network centric view of targets and drug-target integrations. This session will feature new approaches to target and biomarker discovery for AD as well as clinical trial design and highlight examples of successful use of systems-based, data-driven approaches to drug repositioning and combination therapy development for other complex diseases. Additional topics of discussion will include:

development of pharmacodynamic animal models for use in preclinical therapy development
use of computational approaches for PK/PD modeling
multi-sector collaborations for data sharing to enable comprehensive success/failure analysis in preclinical and clinical drug development

Chairs: Eric Schadt (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai), Samantha Budd Haeberlein (Biogen Idec)

Speakers: 12:45pm – 1:35pm

Reisa Sperling (Harvard University)
Current and Emerging Trends in Clinical Development for AD

Julie Stone (Merck)
Quantitative Systems Pharmacology Approaches to Understand Drug-Drug Target Interactions

Eric Schadt (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)
Transforming Target and Biomarker Discovery for AD Using Network Biology Approaches

Panelists: 1:35pm - 2:10pm

Joel Dudley (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)
Daniel Cohen (Pharnext)
Hugo Geerts (In Silico Biosciences)
Rima Kaddurah-Daouk (Duke University)
Barry Greenberg (Toronto Dementia Research Alliance)
Eric Reiman (Banner Institute)
Samantha Budd Haeberlein (Biogen Idec)

Moderated Discussion: 2:10pm - 3:00pm

3:00pm - 5:15pm Session III: New Strategies for Prevention

Reducing the risk and/or delaying disease onset will have tremendous impact on the socioeconomic burden of AD. Central to achieving this goal is gaining an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms of cognitive resilience despite the presence of multiple pathologies, identifying critical windows of vulnerability and quantifying predictors of long-term brain health. This session will review our current understanding of disease progression and feature advances in genetics, epigenetics, epidemiology, and cognitive/behavioral sciences that can inform the development of prevention strategies (pharmacological and nonpharmacological). Major topics of discussion will include:

understanding mechanisms of vascular and metabolic risk to develop effective prevention strategies
understanding the complex interaction between genes and environment as it relates to AD risk
developing innovative trial designs for disease prevention in community based cohort studies
advancing the science of behavior change to ensure that effective prevention strategies are successfully implemented in the population

Chairs: David Bennett (Rush University), Suzanne Craft (Wake Forest Medical School)

Speakers: 3:00pm - 3:50pm

Chirag Patel (Harvard University)
Data Driven Approaches to Interrogate Gene-Environment Interactions for Complex Diseases

Jonathan Mill (University of Exeter and King's College London)
Epigenomics of AD:Implications for Disease Prevention

Monique Breteler (DZNE)
Leveraging Knowledge of Vascular Risk Factors for AD Prevention

Panelists: 3:50pm - 4:30pm

Alison Goate (Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai)
John "Keoni" Kauwe (Brigham Young University)
Claes Wahlestedt (University of Miami)
Suzanne Craft (Wake Forest School of Medicine)
David Holtzman (Washington University at St Louis)
Raj Shah (Rush University)
Lenore Launer (NIA/NIH)
Abby King (Stanford University)

Moderated Discussion: 4:30pm - 5:15pm

DAY TWO – February 10, 2015

7:30am - 8:00am REGISTRATION

8:00am - 10:00am Session IV: Innovating Disease Monitoring, Assessment, and Care

Advances in information technology and mHealth offer unprecedented opportunities to improve our ability to monitor the well-being of patients across multiple dimensions in real time. The availability of these data is critical to optimize and customize the delivery of care. This session will discuss:

the needs and opportunities to innovate disease monitoring and disease assessment
research gaps in integrating care
technologies that enable in-place monitoring of individuals at all stages of the disease and integrating this information with other patient-relevant data in order to refine our understanding of disease progression and our ability to build predictive models of disease
technologies that will help alleviate the burden of care

Chairs: Christopher Callahan (Indiana University), Wendy Nilsen (NIH OBSSR)

Speakers: 8:00am – 8:50am

Wendy Nilsen (NIH OBSSR and NSF Smart and Connected Health)
mHealth Approaches for Disease Monitoring and Care

Jeff Kaye (Oregon Health and Science University)
Innovative Technologies for Disease Monitoring in AD

Laura Gitlin (Johns Hopkins University)
Research Gaps in Integrating Care for AD

Panelists: 8:50am - 9:25am

Jennifer Manly (Columbia University)
Paul Maruff (Cog State)
Rhoda Au (Boston University)
Max Little (Wellcome Trust/MIT)
Nancy Vuckovic (Intel)
Christopher Callahan (Indiana University)

Moderated Discussion: 9:25am - 10:00am

10:00am - 12:00pm Session V: Empowering Patients, Engaging Citizens

The acceleration of the process of discovery, development and delivery of critically needed treatment and prevention for AD in large part depends on patient/citizen awareness and engagement. This session will focus on:

issues of recruitment
health disparities
patient/citizen participation in innovating patient consent, data sharing and trial design
the emergence of Citizen Science as a collaborative approach that enables citizens to more actively participate in the full spectrum of scientific research

Chairs: Sharon Terry (Genetic Alliance), Reisa Sperling (Harvard University)

Speakers: 10:00am - 10:50am

Sharon Terry (Genetic Alliance)
The Role of Patients in Transforming Drug Development

John Willbanks (Sage Bionetworks)
Citizen Participation in Innovating Informed Consent, Data Sharing and Trial Design

Sally Okun (Patients Like Me)
Direct Engagement of Patients in Research

Panelists: 10:50am - 11:20am

Meryl Comer (Geoffrey Beene Foundation)
Stephanie Monroe (African American Network Against Alzheimer’s)
Constantina Mizis (The Latino Alzheimer’s & Memory Disorders Alliance)
Lisa Barnes (Rush University)
Pietro Michelucci (Human Computation Institute)
Jennifer Couch (NCI/NIH)

Moderated Discussion: 11:20pm - 12:00pm

12:00pm -1:15pm LUNCH

1:15pm - 3:20pm Session VI: Enabling Partnerships for Open Innovation

This session will feature a number of transformative programs and public private partnerships (US and international) promoting the open source ethos in biomedical research and drug development and discuss how these can be used to accelerate AD therapy development. Highlighted programs and partnerships will include: the NIH Big Data to Knowledge Program (BD2K), BRAIN and the Accelerating Medicines Partnership-AD program.

Chairs: Stephen Friend (Sage Bionetworks), Peter Lansbury (Lysosomal Therapeutics/Harvard University)

Speakers: 1:15pm – 1:50pm

Philip Bourne (NIH Office of Data Science)
NIH BD2K Program: Harnessing the Power of Big Data in Biomedical Research

Stephen Friend (Sage Bionetworks)
Creating a Knowledge Network to Enable Precision Medicine for AD

Panelists: 1:50pm - 2:35pm

Thomas Insel (NIMH/NIH)
Neil Buckholtz (NIA/NIH)
Tetsuyuki Maruyama (Takeda)
Simon Lovestone (University of Oxford)
Antony Williams (Royal Society of Chemistry)
Diane Stephenson (Coalition Against Major Diseases)
Diana Shineman (Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation)
Maria Carrillo (Alzheimer's Association)
Peter Lansbury (Lysosomal Therapeutics/Harvard University)