Ole Isacson, Dr Med Sci

PhD, Chair of SAB

Ole Isacson is a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and a founding director of the Neuroregeneration Research Institute at McLean Hospital. He specializes in understanding and treating neurodegenerative disease, with particular emphasis on distinguishing critical mechanisms and treatments of neuronal vulnerability at the onset of disease.

Ole is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center, principal faculty of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, member of the FDA Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapies Advisory Committee (CTGTAC), and editor-in-chief of the journal Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience. He received his MB and Dr Med Sci, PhD in Medical Neurobiology from the University of Lund in Sweden and an honorary MA from Harvard University.

Lewis Cantley, PhD

Lewis Cantley is the Director of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center and Professor of Cancer Biology in Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. He has made significant advances to the understanding of cancer metabolism, particularly in the discovery and study of the enzyme PI-3-kinase, which is now known to play an important role in cancer and diabetes mellitus. Lewis was formerly a professor in the Departments of Systems Biology and Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and the Director of Cancer Research at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, in Boston, Massachusetts. Lewis received his PhD in biophysical chemistry from Cornell University and conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard University.

Jeffrey Cummings, MD, ScD

Jeffrey Cummings is the Director of the Center for Neurodegeneration and Translational Neuroscience at the Cleveland Clinic, Director Emeritus of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health and Professor at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. He is the Founding Director of the Luo Ruvo Center for Brain Health and was its Director from 2009 to 2018. He previously was the Director of the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research at UCLA and Director of the Deane F. Johnson Center for Neurotherapeutics at UCLA. He has deep expertise in neuropsychiatric assessment and is a world-renowned Alzheimer’s disease researcher, with interests embracing clinical trials, developing new therapies for brain diseases, and understanding the interface of neuroscience and society. Jeffrey obtained his MD from the University of Washington, Seattle and completed a neurology residency and a fellowship in behavioral neurology at Boston University.

Heidi McBride, PhD

Heidi McBride is a Canada Research Chair in Mitochondrial Cell Biology and Professor in the Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University. She is an expert in understanding the biology and inner workings of the mitochondria, particularly related to how these highly dynamic structures merge, branch, and separate. She began her research career at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute before moving to McGill University in 2011. Through her lab’s research, Heidi seeks to discover new therapeutic approaches to treat various degenerative brain diseases caused by mitochondrial dysfunction.

Heidi received her PhD in biochemistry from McGill University and conducted postdoctoral research at the EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany.