Discovery, Diagnostics and Management:
A new era for Dementia
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS AND PROGRAM TIMES
Dr Nicholas Ashton | Welcome and Keynote 1 Monday 4:30pm
Researcher, Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry, University of Gothenburg, SWEDEN
Dr. Ashton is an assistant professor of Neurochemistry at the Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry at the University Gothenburg in the group of Professor’s Henrik Zetterberg and Kaj Blennow. He also holds a senior researcher position at the department of Old Age Psychiatry, King’s College London, and Stavanger University in Norway. He received his PhD in 2017 from King’s College London in the group of Professor Sir Simon Lovestone. Dr. Ashton has more than a decade of experience in biofluid analysis and assay development for Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders, which ranges from discovery mass spectrometry methods to ultra-sensitive immunoassays. Recently this has produced ultra-sensitive single molecular array (Simoa) assays for phosphorylated tau in blood, which are now widely used in research settings, therapeutics trials and being validated for clinical use. His research now focuses on further assessing these tests in patient populations, preparing for widespread implementation. Further, he also now assessing different tau and synaptic forms in biofluids and how they may contribute to the knowledge of disease pathogenesis and ultimately clinical use.
He has published >200 original research articles in field of fluid biomarkers and in 2021, Dr. Ashton was awarded the Queen of Sweden Prize to a Young Alzheimer Researcher for his contribution dementia research. In addition, this year, he received the Viola Bergqvist award for mentorship.
Professor Christian Behl | Keynote 8 Wednesday 3:00pm
Director of the Institute of Pathobiochemistry, University Medical Center (UMC), Mainz, GERMANY
Christian Behl is Director of the Institute of Pathobiochemistry at the University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, where he is also Full Professor and Chair. He received his PhD in Neurobiology from Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg, Germany, worked as postdoctoral fellow on Alzheimer's Disease at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies La Jolla, California, and headed an Independent Research Group of the Max Planck Society at the MPI for Psychiatry in Munich. In Mainz, Behl translated his long-standing interest in neurodegenerative diseases into a research focus on autophagy, proteostasis, and oxidative stress in the context of age-related neurodegeneration. One of his continuing research goals is to uncover molecular maintenance and resilience processes that allow neurons to resist challenges that occur during neurodegeneration. More recently, he has been intensively reviewing Alzheimer's Disease research with the aim to develop a new understanding of its pathogenesis. Behl is member of a number of scientific boards, including the German Alzheimer Foundation.
Professor Maria Eriksdotter | Keynote 5 Wednesday 9:00am
Founder and the director of the Swedish national quality registry on cognitive/dementia disorders (SveDem), SWEDEN
Maria Eriksdotter, MD, PhD, is professor in geriatric medicine at Karolinska Institutet and senior consultant at Karolinska university hospital, Stockholm, Sweden. Since 2019 Dean of Karolinska Institutet Campus South and previously chair of the KI department of Neurobiology, care sciences and society.
Professor Eriksdotter is the founder and the director of the Swedish national quality registry on cognitive/dementia disorders (SveDem, www.svedem.se), one of the largest databases in the world on different dementia disorders, in which national quality indicators of diagnostics, treatment and dementia care can be followed.
Her research focus on treatment of Alzheimer´s disease and on comorbidities and dementia and has published >250 research articles. Prof Eriksdotter pioneered the first clinical trial in the world on implantation of encapsulated cells releasing nerve growth factor (NGF) directly to the forebrain in patients with Alzheimer´s disease. Using SveDem data, she has contributed to increased knowledge on the relationship between dementia and comorbidities with impact on everyday dementia care.
Professor Sharon Naismith | Keynote 7 Wednesday 2:10pm
MAPS, CCN NHMRC Leadership Fellow, Leonard P Ullmann Chair in Psychology, Brain and Mind Centre & Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney; Lead, Australian Dementia Network Memory Clinics Initiative.
Professor Sharon Naismith is a Clinical Neuropsychologist, National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Dementia Leadership Fellow and holds the Leonard P Ullman Chair in Psychology at the University of Sydney. Her work focuses on the mechanisms by which modifiable risk factors for dementia including depression, sleep disturbance, and cardiovascular disease impact on the brain and how best to treat them. She has authored more than 350 papers and has made new discoveries regarding key brain changes that underpin sleep disturbance and depression in older people. She leads the NHMRC ‘Centre of Research Excellence to Optimise Sleep in Brain Ageing and Neurodegeneration (CogSleep)', a new NHMRC ‘SIESTA’ Synergy Grant, focused on sleep and Alzheimer’s disease and the Australian Dementia Network Memory Clinics Initiative.
Professor Henry Brodaty AO |
Keynote 4 Tuesday 4:40pm
Co-Director Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), UNSW Sydney, NSW
Henry Brodaty AO, MB BS, MD, DSc, FRACP, FRANZCP, FAHMS is a researcher, clinician, policy advisor and strong advocate for people with dementia and their carers. At UNSW Sydney, he is Scientia Professor and Montefiore Chair of Ageing and Mental Health, and Co-Director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing. He has published extensively, is a senior psychogeriatrician at Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney. He serves on multiple committees for the NSW and Australian governments and WHO.
He was previously President of International Psychogeriatric Association, Chairman of Alzheimer’s Disease International, and President of Alzheimer’s Australia NSW and Australia. In 2000 he became an Officer of the Order of Australia and in 2016 received the Ryman Prize for the world’s best development, advance or achievement that enhances quality of life for older people.
Associate Professor Michelle Lupton | Keynote 3 Tuesday 9:50am
QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, QLD
Michelle Lupton specialises in Alzheimer’s disease genome-wide genetic association studies, neuroimaging genetics, genetic risk prediction, and Mendelian Randomisation analysis. She is currently an NHMRC Boosting Dementia Leadership Fellow based at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane and was previously at Kings College London in the UK. Through her work with several Alzheimer’s disease cohort studies, she has contributed to world-class genetics consortia including the leading GWAS Meta-analyses and the Alzheimer’s Exome Sequencing Group which were the first to identify the TREM2 Alzheimer’s risk variant. She co-leads the PISA (Prospective Imaging Study of Aging) which focuses on prodromal and early stage Alzheimer’s disease, and leads the genetics, epidemiology and blood analysis streams. Her core research aims are to improve understanding of the effect of Alzheimer’s disease genetic risk factors, identify early disease and prodromal biomarkers and determine causal relationships between potential modifiable risk factors and Alzheimer’s disease.
Professor Peter Nestor | Keynote 6 Wednesday 9:50am & Continuing Education Monday 11:00am
Professor in Neuroscience, Queensland Brain Institute, QLD
Peter Nestor is conjoint professor of cognitive neurology at the University of Queensland and the Mater Hospital, where he established the Memory and Cognitive Disorders Clinic in 2018. He trained in neurology in Melbourne and at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, Queen’s Square, London, in the 1990s and then did a PhD in cognitive neurology at the University of Cambridge. Afterwards he remained at the University of Cambridge/Addenbrooke’s Hospital for several years as a clinician-scientist. From 2012 until returning to Australia in 2017, he was Professor of Cognitive Neurology at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE). His research focuses on neuropsychology and brain imaging in neurodegenerative diseases that cause dementia.
His research publications have received over 18,000 citations with an H-Index of 69; his book contributions include chapters for the Oxford Text of Medicine; the Oxford Textbook of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia; and Dementia 5th Ed.
Dr Edwin Tan | Keynote 9 Wednesday 3:50pm
Senior Lecturer, School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney
Dr Edwin Tan is a Senior Lecturer School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney. He is also a registered pharmacist with clinical experience in both Australia and the UK. He was a previous NHMRC-ARC Dementia Research Development Fellow at the Karolinska Institute and Monash University. Dr Tan's research interests are in geriatric pharmacoepidemiology, particularly in improving the safe and effective use of medicines in people living with dementia.
Dr Tan has over 80 publications and has been awarded over $3.1M in competitive research funding. He is a member of the Australian Dementia Network (ADNeT) EMCR Accelerator Group and Chair of the Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists (ASCEPT) Pharmacoepidemiology Special Interest Group. He is an executive editor for the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and has served on grant peer review panels for the NHMRC.
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Dr Heather Snyder | Keynote 2 Tuesday 9:00am
Vice President, Medical & Scientific Relations, at the Alzheimer's Association and study team investigator for the development of the Alzheimer’s Network for Treatment and Diagnostics (ALZ-NET), USA
Heather M. Snyder, Ph.D., is vice president, Medical & Scientific Relations at the Alzheimer’s Association®. Dr. Snyder oversees the Association’s funding mechanisms; as the world’s largest nonprofit funder of Alzheimer's research, the Association is currently investing $310 million in more than 950 active best-of-field projects in 48 countries, including Australia. She is on the executive team for the U.S. Study to Protect Brain Health Through Lifestyle Intervention to Reduce Risk (U.S. POINTER) and also serves on the study team for the Alzheimer’s Network for Treatment and Diagnostics (ALZ-NET), a tool that will collect longitudinal diagnostic and therapeutic clinical data, including measures of cognition, function and safety, from individuals treated with FDA-approved Alzheimer’s therapies in clinical settings nationwide. She holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and a bachelor's degree in biology and religious studies from the University of Virginia.
CONTINUING EDUCATION SPEAKERS
Professor Michael Breakspear | Continuing Education Moderator Monday 10:30am - 4:00pm
Michael Breakspear is a Psychiatrist and Neuroscientist researching the principles of brain function in health and in mental illness. Professor Breakspear leads the Systems Neuroscience Group – a team of psychiatrists, physicists, psychologists and neuroimaging scientists at the University of Newcastle and Hunter Medical Research Institute, Australia. He uses computational modelling to study the generative processes underlying bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dementia and in healthy ageing.
Professor Breakspear studied medicine at the University of Sydney, combined with degrees in Arts (philosophy and mathematics) and Science (neuroscience and physics). He is a Fellow of the Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and runs a weekly clinic at the Awabakal Aboriginal Medical Service.
Professor Christopher Rowe | Continuing Education Monday 10:30am & Monday 11:30am
Professor Christopher Rowe is a neurologist and nuclear medicine physician, working in the Memory Disorders Clinic and the Molecular Imaging Department of Austin Health, and leading research teams at Austin Health, the University of Melbourne, and the Florey. He is the Director of the Australian Dementia Network (ADNeT) and is the AIBL study of Ageing imaging leader. As well as 405 publications, he has been a Highly Cited Researcher (top 1% world-wide) for Neuroscience and Behaviour since 2016 with 7,900 citations in 2021 alone. THE AUSTRALIAN named him Australia’s leading researcher in Neurology in 2019 and Geriatric Medicine from 2020 to 2022. International awards include the US Society of Nuclear Medicine Kuhl-Lassen Award for Outstanding Contribution to Brain Imaging and the Christopher Clark Award for advancing human amyloid imaging. His research focus is PET brain imaging and blood biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) to advance understanding of this disease and the translation of recent advancements in diagnostics for AD into clinical practice.
Professor Colin Masters | Continuing Education Monday 12:00pm
Colin Masters is a Professor of Dementia Research at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne and a consultant at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Colin Masters has focused his career on research in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. His work over the last 40 years is widely acknowledged as having had a major influence on Alzheimer’s disease research world-wide, particularly the collaborative studies conducted with Konrad Beyreuther in which they discovered the proteolytic neuronal origin of the Aβ amyloid protein which causes Alzheimer’s disease. This work has led to the continued development of diagnostics and therapeutic strategies and has been recognized by the receipt of many international awards. More recently, his focus has been on describing the natural history of Alzheimer’s disease as a necessary preparatory step for disease modifying therapies.
Dr Marita Long | Continuing Education Monday 12:30pm
Dr Marita Long graduated from the University of Tasmania in 2007 with first-class honours. She became a fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practice in 2013 and has a Diploma of Child Health and a Certificate in Sexual and Reproductive Health. She is currently on the board of the Australasian Menopause Society.
Marita works 3 days per week in a busy clinic in the northern suburbs of Melbourne where she is also a GP supervisor. She has also works as a Medical Educator 1 day per week including being one of the lead GP clinical educators for Dementia Training Australia. She is a passionate advocate for all of her patients and has a special interest in both women’s health and people living with Dementia.
Dr Peter Silberberg | Continuing Education Monday 12:30pm
Dr Peter Silberberg is an experienced GP, GP Supervisor and Medical Educator. He recently joined Dementia Training Australia as a medical educator in 2022.
He has worked in many sectors in primary health and currently works as a GP and lead clinician at Rekindling The Spirit Health Service (AMS) in Lismore and as a GP at Lennox Head Medical Centre.
Dr Karen Croot | Continuing Education Monday 1:30pm
Karen Croot has a Doctor of Psychology (Clinical Neuropsychology) from Macquarie University and a PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cambridge. Prior to joining the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) at UNSW, she was a Senior Lecturer in Applied Cognitive Psychology at the University of Sydney. Her research has been supported by the Australian Research Council, the British Academy, the Hazel Hawke Alzheimer’s Research and Care Fund, and the University of Munich. She worked on the CogSCAN Study (A cross-comparison, validation and investigation of performance of computer-administered neuropsychological tests in healthy ageing, mild cognitive impairment and dementia) from 2018-2022, under the mentorship of Study Lead and NHRMC Boosting Dementia Research Investigator Dr Nicole Kochan.
Associate Professor Kerryn Pike | Continuing Education Monday 2:30pm
Associate Professor Kerryn Pike (DPsych (Clin Neuro) MAPS FCCN) is a Clinical Neuropsychologist and Associate Professor in the School of Applied Psychology at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. She also holds an adjunct position at La Trobe University and works clinically in private practice. She is one of the founders of the LaTCH memory management group program, designed to improve the everyday memory of people with mild cognitive impairment. Dr Pike is particularly interested in translating evidence-based neuropsychological interventions into clinical practice and is an expert member of the Australian Dementia Network (ADNET) Cognitive Interventions Working Party, and co-chair of the International Neuropsychological Society (INS)’s Special Interest Group on Neuropsychological Interventions. In terms of research track record, Dr Pike has 58 papers in high quality journals within Psychology and Neuroscience, with high citation rates (>6400), and a book chapter. She has attracted > $6.5 million in research funding to date.
Associate Professor Michael Woodward AM | Continuing Education Monday 3:00pm
Associate Professor Michael Woodward is Head of Aged Care Research and the Memory Clinic at Austin Health in Melbourne, Victoria. He is a specialist in geriatric medicine with major interests in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other dementias. He is Principal Investigator for numerous research trials of new therapies for AD and related disorders. He is a Board member of the national Dementia Australia Research Foundation, as well as one of the 3 Honorary Medical Advisors to Dementia Australia.
He was awarded his MD on the overlap between the dementia syndromes and how memory clinic databases contribute to our understanding of the dementias. More recent research interests have focussed on characterizing the frontal (dysexecutive) variant of Alzheimer’s Disease.
He is Chair of the (adult) Training Accreditation Subcommittee of the RACP and has been extensively involved with training bodies of the College and the ANZSGM for over 30 years.
On Australia Day 2016 he was honoured with the award of Membership of the Order of Australia (AM) for his work in dementia and geriatric medicine, his contribution to these numerous professional bodies, and his body of publications and other writings.
Dr Stephanie Daly | Continuing Education Monday 3:30pm
Dr Stephanie Daly is a GP in Adelaide, originally from the UK and has been working in Adelaide for four years. Dr Stephanie Daly works as a contractor GP in Golden Grove three days a week. She has a strong interest in older persons' health in particular dementia and cognition, as well as health throughout the lifecourse of women. Dr Stephanie Daly is participating in research to better understand the importance of public health campaigns in improving awareness of dementia and cognitive impairment. She is a lead GP educator with Dementia Training Australia, providing educational resources and workshops across Australia. Dr Daly is also the founder of Sensus Cognition a GP led community clinic for cognition and dementia support and assessment.
SYMPOSIA SPEAKERS
Associate Professor Kerryn Pike | Prevention and Lifestyle Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
Associate Professor Kerryn Pike (DPsych (Clin Neuro) MAPS FCCN) is a Clinical Neuropsychologist and Associate Professor in the School of Applied Psychology at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. She also holds an adjunct position at La Trobe University and works clinically in private practice. She is one of the founders of the LaTCH memory management group program, designed to improve the everyday memory of people with mild cognitive impairment. Dr Pike is particularly interested in translating evidence-based neuropsychological interventions into clinical practice and is an expert member of the Australian Dementia Network (ADNET) Cognitive Interventions Working Party, and co-chair of the International Neuropsychological Society (INS)’s Special Interest Group on Neuropsychological Interventions. In terms of research track record, Dr Pike has 58 papers in high quality journals within Psychology and Neuroscience, with high citation rates (>6400), and a book chapter. She has attracted > $6.5 million in research funding to date.
Associate Professor Ruth Peters | Prevention and Lifestyle Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
Dr. Peters completed her PhD on risk factors for dementia at Imperial College London in 2008. During her PhD she began a series of influential systematic reviews examining the evidence for the dementia risk factors including air pollution with several of her reviews cited in guidelines, public advocacy and public policy documentation and in 2018 she was part of the team collating the evidence for the 2019 WHO dementia risk reduction guidelines. She has a particular interest in cardiovascular risk factors for dementia which pressure began during her role as the cognitive lead for the multinational award winning and practice changing blood pressure lowering trial (HYVET) (Beckett, Peters et al NEJM 2008, Peters et al Lancet Neurol 2008). After completing a prestigious National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) fellowship in the UK she relocated to Australia and is currently based at UNSW and The George Institute for Global Health.
Dr Suraj Samtani | Prevention and Lifestyle Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
Dr Suraj Samtani is a healthy ageing researcher at the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) at UNSW Sydney. Suraj is also a Clinical Psychologist with several years of experience in the assessment and treatment of psychological difficulties experienced by older adults. His current research looks at how social connections help us to maintain our cognitive health and mental health.
Professor Kaarin Anstey | Prevention and Lifestyle Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
Professor Kaarin Anstey is an ARC Laureate Fellow in the School of Psychology at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). She is also Director of the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute, and co-Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing as well as a conjoint Senior Principal Research Scientist at Neuroscience Research Australia. Anstey’s research programs focus on the causes, consequences and prevention of cognitive ageing, and dementia. She has developed risk assessment tools and is an investigator on several multidomain dementia risk reduction trials. A second focus of her work is on how sensory and cognitive ageing impact driving. Anstey was a member of the WHO Guideline Development Committee for the Guidelines on Risk Reduction for Cognitive Decline and Dementia and is a member of the Governance Committee of the Global Council on Brain Health.
Mr Bill Yeates (person with lived experience) | DEMENTIA AUSTRALIA Post Diagnostic Care Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
My name is William Yeates, and I live on the Northern Beaches in Sydney. In July 2019, at the age of 59, I was diagnosed with Younger Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. Although I graduated from Sydney University with a Bachelor of Pharmacy in 1980, I spent most of the working life in the educational field, as an administrator and teacher of chemistry and physics.
Having now retired, I am currently Vice Chair of Dementia Alliance International (DAI) and part of the advocacy team at Dementia Australia. I enjoy my work as an advocate and spend a lot of time researching and learning how to best manage my diagnosis so that I can share this knowledge with others who are also living with dementia.
Professor Brenda Gannon | DEMENTIA AUSTRALIA Post Diagnostic Care Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
Professor Brenda Gannon is a Professor in the School of Economics and Affiliate Professor at the Centre for the Business and Economics of Health, The University of Queensland and an Affiliate Professor at the Mater Research Institute, The University of Queensland. She is also an affiliate member of CEPAR (ARC Centre for Research Excellence in Population Ageing Research). She has developed a range of projects in Economics of Ageing on topics of physical activity and cognition, health shocks and health care utilization, and consumer directed care and home care. She has worked extensively on interdisciplinary research with gerontologists, clinicians and methodologists. Her work has been influential in the development of programs for falls preventions and informing policy on disability and social inclusion, and has positively impacted on the health of many older people across the world.
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS AND PROGRAM TIMES
Dr Nicholas Ashton | Welcome and Keynote 1 Monday 4:30pm
Researcher, Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry, University of Gothenburg, SWEDEN
Dr. Ashton is an assistant professor of Neurochemistry at the Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry at the University Gothenburg in the group of Professor’s Henrik Zetterberg and Kaj Blennow. He also holds a senior researcher position at the department of Old Age Psychiatry, King’s College London, and Stavanger University in Norway. He received his PhD in 2017 from King’s College London in the group of Professor Sir Simon Lovestone. Dr. Ashton has more than a decade of experience in biofluid analysis and assay development for Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders, which ranges from discovery mass spectrometry methods to ultra-sensitive immunoassays. Recently this has produced ultra-sensitive single molecular array (Simoa) assays for phosphorylated tau in blood, which are now widely used in research settings, therapeutics trials and being validated for clinical use. His research now focuses on further assessing these tests in patient populations, preparing for widespread implementation. Further, he also now assessing different tau and synaptic forms in biofluids and how they may contribute to the knowledge of disease pathogenesis and ultimately clinical use.
He has published >200 original research articles in field of fluid biomarkers and in 2021, Dr. Ashton was awarded the Queen of Sweden Prize to a Young Alzheimer Researcher for his contribution dementia research. In addition, this year, he received the Viola Bergqvist award for mentorship.
Professor Christian Behl | Keynote 8 Wednesday 3:00pm
Director of the Institute of Pathobiochemistry, University Medical Center (UMC), Mainz, GERMANY
Christian Behl is Director of the Institute of Pathobiochemistry at the University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, where he is also Full Professor and Chair. He received his PhD in Neurobiology from Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg, Germany, worked as postdoctoral fellow on Alzheimer's Disease at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies La Jolla, California, and headed an Independent Research Group of the Max Planck Society at the MPI for Psychiatry in Munich. In Mainz, Behl translated his long-standing interest in neurodegenerative diseases into a research focus on autophagy, proteostasis, and oxidative stress in the context of age-related neurodegeneration. One of his continuing research goals is to uncover molecular maintenance and resilience processes that allow neurons to resist challenges that occur during neurodegeneration. More recently, he has been intensively reviewing Alzheimer's Disease research with the aim to develop a new understanding of its pathogenesis. Behl is member of a number of scientific boards, including the German Alzheimer Foundation.
Professor Maria Eriksdotter | Keynote 5 Wednesday 9:00am
Founder and the director of the Swedish national quality registry on cognitive/dementia disorders (SveDem), SWEDEN
Maria Eriksdotter, MD, PhD, is professor in geriatric medicine at Karolinska Institutet and senior consultant at Karolinska university hospital, Stockholm, Sweden. Since 2019 Dean of Karolinska Institutet Campus South and previously chair of the KI department of Neurobiology, care sciences and society.
Professor Eriksdotter is the founder and the director of the Swedish national quality registry on cognitive/dementia disorders (SveDem, www.svedem.se), one of the largest databases in the world on different dementia disorders, in which national quality indicators of diagnostics, treatment and dementia care can be followed.
Her research focus on treatment of Alzheimer´s disease and on comorbidities and dementia and has published >250 research articles. Prof Eriksdotter pioneered the first clinical trial in the world on implantation of encapsulated cells releasing nerve growth factor (NGF) directly to the forebrain in patients with Alzheimer´s disease. Using SveDem data, she has contributed to increased knowledge on the relationship between dementia and comorbidities with impact on everyday dementia care.
Professor Sharon Naismith | Keynote 7 Wednesday 2:10pm
MAPS, CCN NHMRC Leadership Fellow, Leonard P Ullmann Chair in Psychology, Brain and Mind Centre & Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney; Lead, Australian Dementia Network Memory Clinics Initiative.
Professor Sharon Naismith is a Clinical Neuropsychologist, National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Dementia Leadership Fellow and holds the Leonard P Ullman Chair in Psychology at the University of Sydney. Her work focuses on the mechanisms by which modifiable risk factors for dementia including depression, sleep disturbance, and cardiovascular disease impact on the brain and how best to treat them. She has authored more than 350 papers and has made new discoveries regarding key brain changes that underpin sleep disturbance and depression in older people. She leads the NHMRC ‘Centre of Research Excellence to Optimise Sleep in Brain Ageing and Neurodegeneration (CogSleep)', a new NHMRC ‘SIESTA’ Synergy Grant, focused on sleep and Alzheimer’s disease and the Australian Dementia Network Memory Clinics Initiative.
Professor Henry Brodaty AO | Keynote 4 Tuesday 4:40pm
Co-Director Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), UNSW Sydney, NSW
Henry Brodaty AO, MB BS, MD, DSc, FRACP, FRANZCP, FAHMS is a researcher, clinician, policy advisor and strong advocate for people with dementia and their carers. At UNSW Sydney, he is Scientia Professor and Montefiore Chair of Ageing and Mental Health, and Co-Director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing. He has published extensively, is a senior psychogeriatrician at Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney. He serves on multiple committees for the NSW and Australian governments and WHO.
He was previously President of International Psychogeriatric Association, Chairman of Alzheimer’s Disease International, and President of Alzheimer’s Australia NSW and Australia. In 2000 he became an Officer of the Order of Australia and in 2016 received the Ryman Prize for the world’s best development, advance or achievement that enhances quality of life for older people.
Associate Professor Michelle Lupton | Keynote 3 Tuesday 9:50am
QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute, Brisbane, QLD
Michelle Lupton specialises in Alzheimer’s disease genome-wide genetic association studies, neuroimaging genetics, genetic risk prediction, and Mendelian Randomisation analysis. She is currently an NHMRC Boosting Dementia Leadership Fellow based at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute in Brisbane and was previously at Kings College London in the UK. Through her work with several Alzheimer’s disease cohort studies, she has contributed to world-class genetics consortia including the leading GWAS Meta-analyses and the Alzheimer’s Exome Sequencing Group which were the first to identify the TREM2 Alzheimer’s risk variant. She co-leads the PISA (Prospective Imaging Study of Aging) which focuses on prodromal and early stage Alzheimer’s disease, and leads the genetics, epidemiology and blood analysis streams. Her core research aims are to improve understanding of the effect of Alzheimer’s disease genetic risk factors, identify early disease and prodromal biomarkers and determine causal relationships between potential modifiable risk factors and Alzheimer’s disease.
Professor Colin Masters | Keynote 6 Wednesday 9:50am & Continuing Education Monday 12:00pm
Professor in Neuroscience, Queensland Brain Institute, QLD
Colin Masters is a Professor of Dementia Research at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne and a consultant at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Colin Masters has focused his career on research in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. His work over the last 40 years is widely acknowledged as having had a major influence on Alzheimer’s disease research world-wide, particularly the collaborative studies conducted with Konrad Beyreuther in which they discovered the proteolytic neuronal origin of the Aβ amyloid protein which causes Alzheimer’s disease. This work has led to the continued development of diagnostics and therapeutic strategies and has been recognized by the receipt of many international awards. More recently, his focus has been on describing the natural history of Alzheimer’s disease as a necessary preparatory step for disease modifying therapies.
Dr Edwin Tan | Keynote 9 Wednesday 3:50pm
Senior Lecturer, School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney
Dr Edwin Tan is a Senior Lecturer School of Pharmacy, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney. He is also a registered pharmacist with clinical experience in both Australia and the UK. He was a previous NHMRC-ARC Dementia Research Development Fellow at the Karolinska Institute and Monash University. Dr Tan's research interests are in geriatric pharmacoepidemiology, particularly in improving the safe and effective use of medicines in people living with dementia.
Dr Tan has over 80 publications and has been awarded over $3.1M in competitive research funding. He is a member of the Australian Dementia Network (ADNeT) EMCR Accelerator Group and Chair of the Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists (ASCEPT) Pharmacoepidemiology Special Interest Group. He is an executive editor for the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology and has served on grant peer review panels for the NHMRC.
Dr Heather Snyder | Keynote 2 Tuesday 9:00am
Vice President, Medical & Scientific Relations, at the Alzheimer's Association and study team investigator for the development of the Alzheimer’s Network for Treatment and Diagnostics (ALZ-NET), USA
Heather M. Snyder, Ph.D., is vice president, Medical & Scientific Relations at the Alzheimer’s Association®. Dr. Snyder oversees the Association’s funding mechanisms; as the world’s largest nonprofit funder of Alzheimer's research, the Association is currently investing $310 million in more than 950 active best-of-field projects in 48 countries, including Australia. She is on the executive team for the U.S. Study to Protect Brain Health Through Lifestyle Intervention to Reduce Risk (U.S. POINTER) and also serves on the study team for the Alzheimer’s Network for Treatment and Diagnostics (ALZ-NET), a tool that will collect longitudinal diagnostic and therapeutic clinical data, including measures of cognition, function and safety, from individuals treated with FDA-approved Alzheimer’s therapies in clinical settings nationwide. She holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine and a bachelor's degree in biology and religious studies from the University of Virginia.
CONTINUING EDUCATION SPEAKERS
Professor Michael Breakspear | Continuing Education Moderator Monday 10:30am - 4:00pm
Michael Breakspear is a Psychiatrist and Neuroscientist researching the principles of brain function in health and in mental illness. Professor Breakspear leads the Systems Neuroscience Group – a team of psychiatrists, physicists, psychologists and neuroimaging scientists at the University of Newcastle and Hunter Medical Research Institute, Australia. He uses computational modelling to study the generative processes underlying bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dementia and in healthy ageing.
Professor Breakspear studied medicine at the University of Sydney, combined with degrees in Arts (philosophy and mathematics) and Science (neuroscience and physics). He is a Fellow of the Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and runs a weekly clinic at the Awabakal Aboriginal Medical Service.
Professor Christopher Rowe | Continuing Education Monday 10:30am & Monday 11:30am & Symposia Emerging Disease Modifying Therapies Wednesday 31 May - 11:10am
Professor Christopher Rowe is a neurologist and nuclear medicine physician, working in the Memory Disorders Clinic and the Molecular Imaging Department of Austin Health, and leading research teams at Austin Health, the University of Melbourne, and the Florey. He is the Director of the Australian Dementia Network (ADNeT) and is the AIBL study of Ageing imaging leader. As well as 405 publications, he has been a Highly Cited Researcher (top 1% world-wide) for Neuroscience and Behaviour since 2016 with 7,900 citations in 2021 alone. THE AUSTRALIAN named him Australia’s leading researcher in Neurology in 2019 and Geriatric Medicine from 2020 to 2022. International awards include the US Society of Nuclear Medicine Kuhl-Lassen Award for Outstanding Contribution to Brain Imaging and the Christopher Clark Award for advancing human amyloid imaging. His research focus is PET brain imaging and blood biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) to advance understanding of this disease and the translation of recent advancements in diagnostics for AD into clinical practice.
Professor Colin Masters | Continuing Education Monday 12:00pm
Colin Masters is a Professor of Dementia Research at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne and a consultant at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. Colin Masters has focused his career on research in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases, including Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. His work over the last 40 years is widely acknowledged as having had a major influence on Alzheimer’s disease research world-wide, particularly the collaborative studies conducted with Konrad Beyreuther in which they discovered the proteolytic neuronal origin of the Aβ amyloid protein which causes Alzheimer’s disease. This work has led to the continued development of diagnostics and therapeutic strategies and has been recognized by the receipt of many international awards. More recently, his focus has been on describing the natural history of Alzheimer’s disease as a necessary preparatory step for disease modifying therapies.
Dr Marita Long | Continuing Education Monday 12:30pm
Dr Marita Long graduated from the University of Tasmania in 2007 with first-class honours. She became a fellow of the Royal Australian College of General Practice in 2013 and has a Diploma of Child Health and a Certificate in Sexual and Reproductive Health. She is currently on the board of the Australasian Menopause Society.
Marita works 3 days per week in a busy clinic in the northern suburbs of Melbourne where she is also a GP supervisor. She has also works as a Medical Educator 1 day per week including being one of the lead GP clinical educators for Dementia Training Australia. She is a passionate advocate for all of her patients and has a special interest in both women’s health and people living with Dementia.
Dr Peter Silberberg | Continuing Education Monday 12:30pm
Dr Peter Silberberg is an experienced GP, GP Supervisor and Medical Educator. He recently joined Dementia Training Australia as a medical educator in 2022.
He has worked in many sectors in primary health and currently works as a GP and lead clinician at Rekindling The Spirit Health Service (AMS) in Lismore and as a GP at Lennox Head Medical Centre.
Dr Karen Croot | Continuing Education Monday 1:30pm
Karen Croot has a Doctor of Psychology (Clinical Neuropsychology) from Macquarie University and a PhD in Experimental Psychology from the University of Cambridge. Prior to joining the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) at UNSW, she was a Senior Lecturer in Applied Cognitive Psychology at the University of Sydney. Her research has been supported by the Australian Research Council, the British Academy, the Hazel Hawke Alzheimer’s Research and Care Fund, and the University of Munich. She worked on the CogSCAN Study (A cross-comparison, validation and investigation of performance of computer-administered neuropsychological tests in healthy ageing, mild cognitive impairment and dementia) from 2018-2022, under the mentorship of Study Lead and NHRMC Boosting Dementia Research Investigator Dr Nicole Kochan.
Associate Professor Kerryn Pike | Continuing Education Monday 2:00pm & Symposia Prevention and Lifestyle Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
Associate Professor Kerryn Pike (DPsych (Clin Neuro) MAPS FCCN) is a Clinical Neuropsychologist and Associate Professor in the School of Applied Psychology at Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia. She also holds an adjunct position at La Trobe University and works clinically in private practice. She is one of the founders of the LaTCH memory management group program, designed to improve the everyday memory of people with mild cognitive impairment. Dr Pike is particularly interested in translating evidence-based neuropsychological interventions into clinical practice and is an expert member of the Australian Dementia Network (ADNET) Cognitive Interventions Working Party, and co-chair of the International Neuropsychological Society (INS)’s Special Interest Group on Neuropsychological Interventions. In terms of research track record, Dr Pike has 58 papers in high quality journals within Psychology and Neuroscience, with high citation rates (>6400), and a book chapter. She has attracted > $6.5 million in research funding to date.
Associate Professor Michael Woodward AM | Continuing Education Monday 2:30pm
Associate Professor Michael Woodward is Head of Aged Care Research and the Memory Clinic at Austin Health in Melbourne, Victoria. He is a specialist in geriatric medicine with major interests in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other dementias. He is Principal Investigator for numerous research trials of new therapies for AD and related disorders. He is a Board member of the national Dementia Australia Research Foundation, as well as one of the 3 Honorary Medical Advisors to Dementia Australia.
He was awarded his MD on the overlap between the dementia syndromes and how memory clinic databases contribute to our understanding of the dementias. More recent research interests have focussed on characterizing the frontal (dysexecutive) variant of Alzheimer’s Disease.
He is Chair of the (adult) Training Accreditation Subcommittee of the RACP and has been extensively involved with training bodies of the College and the ANZSGM for over 30 years.
On Australia Day 2016 he was honoured with the award of Membership of the Order of Australia (AM) for his work in dementia and geriatric medicine, his contribution to these numerous professional bodies, and his body of publications and other writings.
Dr Stephanie Daly | Continuing Education Monday 3:30pm
Dr Stephanie Daly is a GP in Adelaide, originally from the UK and has been working in Adelaide for four years. Dr Stephanie Daly works as a contractor GP in Golden Grove three days a week. She has a strong interest in older persons' health in particular dementia and cognition, as well as health throughout the lifecourse of women. Dr Stephanie Daly is participating in research to better understand the importance of public health campaigns in improving awareness of dementia and cognitive impairment. She is a lead GP educator with Dementia Training Australia, providing educational resources and workshops across Australia. Dr Daly is also the founder of Sensus Cognition a GP led community clinic for cognition and dementia support and assessment.
SYMPOSIA SPEAKERS
Associate Professor Ruth Peters | Prevention and Lifestyle Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
Dr. Peters completed her PhD on risk factors for dementia at Imperial College London in 2008. During her PhD she began a series of influential systematic reviews examining the evidence for the dementia risk factors including air pollution with several of her reviews cited in guidelines, public advocacy and public policy documentation and in 2018 she was part of the team collating the evidence for the 2019 WHO dementia risk reduction guidelines. She has a particular interest in cardiovascular risk factors for dementia which pressure began during her role as the cognitive lead for the multinational award winning and practice changing blood pressure lowering trial (HYVET) (Beckett, Peters et al NEJM 2008, Peters et al Lancet Neurol 2008). After completing a prestigious National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) fellowship in the UK she relocated to Australia and is currently based at UNSW and The George Institute for Global Health.
Dr Suraj Samtani | Prevention and Lifestyle Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
Dr Suraj Samtani is a healthy ageing researcher at the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA) at UNSW Sydney. Suraj is also a Clinical Psychologist with several years of experience in the assessment and treatment of psychological difficulties experienced by older adults. His current research looks at how social connections help us to maintain our cognitive health and mental health.
Professor Kaarin Anstey | Prevention and Lifestyle Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
Professor Kaarin Anstey is an ARC Laureate Fellow in the School of Psychology at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). She is also Director of the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute, and co-Deputy Director of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing as well as a conjoint Senior Principal Research Scientist at Neuroscience Research Australia. Anstey’s research programs focus on the causes, consequences and prevention of cognitive ageing, and dementia. She has developed risk assessment tools and is an investigator on several multidomain dementia risk reduction trials. A second focus of her work is on how sensory and cognitive ageing impact driving. Anstey was a member of the WHO Guideline Development Committee for the Guidelines on Risk Reduction for Cognitive Decline and Dementia and is a member of the Governance Committee of the Global Council on Brain Health.
Mr Bill Yeates (person with lived experience) | DEMENTIA AUSTRALIA Post Diagnostic Care Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
My name is William Yeates, and I live on the Northern Beaches in Sydney. In July 2019, at the age of 59, I was diagnosed with Younger Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. Although I graduated from Sydney University with a Bachelor of Pharmacy in 1980, I spent most of the working life in the educational field, as an administrator and teacher of chemistry and physics.
Having now retired, I am currently Vice Chair of Dementia Alliance International (DAI) and part of the advocacy team at Dementia Australia. I enjoy my work as an advocate and spend a lot of time researching and learning how to best manage my diagnosis so that I can share this knowledge with others who are also living with dementia.
Professor Brenda Gannon | DEMENTIA AUSTRALIA Post Diagnostic Care Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
Professor Brenda Gannon is a Professor in the School of Economics and Affiliate Professor at the Centre for the Business and Economics of Health, The University of Queensland and an Affiliate Professor at the Mater Research Institute, The University of Queensland. She is also an affiliate member of CEPAR (ARC Centre for Research Excellence in Population Ageing Research). She has developed a range of projects in Economics of Ageing on topics of physical activity and cognition, health shocks and health care utilization, and consumer directed care and home care. She has worked extensively on interdisciplinary research with gerontologists, clinicians and methodologists. Her work has been influential in the development of programs for falls preventions and informing policy on disability and social inclusion, and has positively impacted on the health of many older people across the world.
Professor Dimity Pond | DEMENTIA AUSTRALIA Post Diagnostic Care Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
Dimity Pond is a GP in clinical practice in Berowra, NSW. She is Honorary Clinical Professor at the University of Tasmania and conducts research in the area of aged care and particularly dementia, focussing mainly on GP identification and management. She has recently been the clinical lead for a Northern Sydney Primary Health Network project for GPs around Quality Improvement in Dementia Care
Ms Heather Fitzpatrick (Carer) | DEMENTIA AUSTRALIA Post Diagnostic Care Tuesday 30 May - 11.20am
Heather Fitzpatrick is a carer for her husband, Noel, who was diagnosed at 61 with younger onset dementia. She lives in Brisbane. Heather is a member of the Dementia Advocates Program, advocating to address stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with dementia and to bring about positive change for those impacted by dementia.
Professor Jürgen Götz | Emerging Disease Modifying Therapies Wednesday 31 May - 11:10am
Professor Jürgen Götz is the inaugural Director of the Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research at the Queensland Brain Institute of the University of Queensland (Australia). Professor Götz studied biochemistry in Switzerland and earned his PhD in immunology with Nobel Laureate Köhler in Germany. After postdoctoral work at UCSF and at Novartis, he became a group leader in Zürich, before moving to the University of Sydney in 2005, and then to the University of Brisbane (Queensland Brain Institute) in 2012. A major focus of his laboratory is to gain insight into how tau and amyloid both separately and synergistically contribute to Alzheimer’s disease. In recent years, the laboratory has started to develop low-intensity therapeutic ultrasound into a treatment modality for Alzheimer’s disease and other brain diseases, both by transiently opening the blood-brain barrier and as a neuromodulatory tool.
Dr Rebecca Nisbet | Emerging Disease Modifying Therapies Wednesday 31 May - 11:10am
Rebecca Nisbet is head of the Antibody Therapeutics Laboratory at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. Her lab aims to optimise antibody delivery to the brain and neurons to treat Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr Ramon Martinez-Marmol | Emerging Disease Modifying Therapies Wednesday 31 May - 11:10am
Ramon Martinez-Marmol performed his PhD at the University of Barcelona. In 2015 he relocated to Australia as a postdoctoral fellow at the Queensland Brain Institute, where he developed his research on understanding the pathological organization of neuronal proteins to be able to design new strategies to stop the progression of brain disorders. Working at the laboratory of Professor Massimo A. Hilliard, Dr Martinez-Marmol discovered that certain viral infections of the nervous system induce the fusion of infected neurons and glial cells. These findings represent a paradigm shift in our knowledge of the neuronal consequences of how viruses and viral-related molecules impact the brain. Never before has viral-mediated fusogen activity been directly linked to brain function and behaviour, and it is likely that fusogens will become novel therapeutical elements that could be targeted to treat a wide variety of viral infections.
Professor Lars Ittner | Non-Amyloid Targets Wednesday 31 May - 12:20pm
Lars Ittner is the Director of the Dementia Research Centre and Professor of Neuroscience at Macquarie University. After graduating in Medicine and receiving his M.D. from the University of Zurich in Switzerland, Lars completed his postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Zurich in 2005 and the University of Sydney in 2010. He held faculty appointments at the University of Sydney and the University of New South Wales before joining Macquarie University in 2018.
Professor Ittner’s research focuses on understanding basic disease mechanisms and targeting treatments. He has published over 150 papers with over 15,000 citations including in leading scientific journals such as Science, Cell and Neuron. He received the ASBMB Merck Research Medal 2017 for his paradigm-shifting work in Alzheimer’s disease.
Dr Alan Yu | Non-Amyloid Targets Wednesday 31 May - 12:20pm
Dr Alan Yu is Head of the Neuroinflammation Laboratory at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health. His PhD studied the inner workings of the innate immune systems upon mycobacterial infection. In 2016, he proposed to investigate the biology behind neurodegenerative processes through the lens of innate immunology earned a highly prestigious 5-year WEHI Centenary Fellowship. Dr Yu’s research into the toxicity of TDP-43 has led to a shift in thinking on how this central ALS/FTD player causes the cGAS/STING-related inflammatory responses that eventually leads to neurodegeneration, highlighting the underappreciated importance of the innate immune system in these diseases. Dr Yu was strategically recruited to The Florey in late 2021, and aspires to establish an interdisciplinary research program that brings expertise in biomedical/clinical sciences, computational biology and an entirely novel spatial multi-omics technology to transform the way we perceive the cause(s) and pathogenesis of ALS-FTD, with clinical impacts.
Professor Lezanne Ooi | Non-Amyloid Targets Wednesday 31 May - 12:20pm
Lezanne Ooi is a Professor in the School of Chemistry and Molecular Bioscience at the University of Wollongong and Group Leader of the Neurodevelopment and Neurodegeneration Lab. She completed her PhD and post-docs at the University of Leeds in the UK and started her lab at UOW in 2012 as a Lecturer in Biological Sciences. Her lab uses electrophysiology, imaging and a range of cell and molecular biology techniques. The Ooi lab investigates disease mechanisms and drug discovery in neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation, using stem cell models, human tissue and mouse models and focuses on the control of neuronal function and neuronal-glial interactions.
Dr Abdel Belaidi | Non-Amyloid Targets Wednesday 31 May - 12:20pm
Dr. Belaidi is a Senior Research Fellow at the Florey Institute of Neuroscience. He is an expert in iron metabolism, ferroptosis, apolipoprotein E and apolipoprotein E receptors and their association with neurodegeneration with a special focus on mechanism of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s disease. He was awarded a PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Cologne in Germany in 2011 and performed research that resulted in significant novel biochemical and clinical findings and has been translated to the development of the first successful therapy of human molybdenum cofactor deficiency. Dr. Belaidi joined the Florey in 2014 and undertook research in the field of Alzheimer’s disease. He is the recipient of multiple international research fellowships and a grant from the German Research foundation (DFG) and the Alzheimer’s Association. Dr. Belaidi’s current research laboratory is specialized in investigating cell metabolism and cell death mechanisms implicated in neurodegeneration with particular interest in Alzheimer’s disease.
Abstract
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10 November 2022
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19 May 2023
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29 May 2023
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