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Management Team | Board of Directors | Scientific Advisory Board | R&D Team
Tae-Wan Kim, Ph.D., Founding Scientist and Co-chair
Tae-Wan is currently Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator in The Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University. Tae-Wan also holds appointments in the University's Department of Pathology and the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior. He received his B.S. in Biotechnology at Yonsei University in Seoul, Korea, and his Ph.D. in Neurobiology from Rutgers University in 1994 working in the laboratory of Dr. Ira B. Black. In 1994, Tae-Wan undertook a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Rudolph E. Tanzi, a prominent Alzheimer's disease researcher, at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He was subsequently appointed Instructor and later Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Tae-Wan has made a number of seminal contributions to the field of Alzheimer's disease research, including identification of key cellular defects associated with genetic mutations of presenilins in early-onset Alzheimer's disease. He has published more than 30 peer-reviewed papers in leading scientific journals and has been invited to present lectures at over 30 symposia and conferences. Tae-Wan has received a number of prestigious awards, including the Ruth Salta Junior Investigator Achievement Award from the American Health Assistance Foundation (2004), the New Scholar Award in Aging from the Ellison Medical Foundation (2002) ; and the Partners Investigator Nesson Award from the Partners HealthCare System, Inc. (1998).
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Wei Gu, Ph.D., Co-chair
Wei is Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology and Principal Investigator in the Institute of Cancer Genetics at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York. He obtained his Ph.D. on the role of the c-Myc oncogene in regulation of transcription and cell proliferation, at Columbia under the supervision of Dr. Riccardo Dalla-Favera, a world expert in the field of cancer genetics. After completing his Ph.D., Wei moved to Rockefeller University, where he conducted postdoctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Robert G. Roeder. For the past decade the main focus of his research has been to characterize the regulatory circuitry of p53, a protein that plays a crucial role in coordinating cellular responses to damage and stress, and is widely implicated in the development of various human cancers. Wei's seminal contributions to the field of cancer genetics have been recognized with a variety of awards, such as the American Cancer Society Award and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar Award. He has over 35 peer-reviewed publications in top scientific journals, including Nature, Science, and Cell and is an inventor on several patents.
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Samuel Gandy, M.D., Ph.D.
Samuel is the Director of the Farber Institute for Neurosciences, and Professor in the Departments of Neurology, Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. He received his M.D./Ph.D. from the Medical University of South Carolina with postgraduate medical training at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Cornell University, as well as postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University in New York. An internationally recognized expert in Alzheimer's pathology and drug discovery, Samuel directs the extensive Alzheimer's research program at the Farber Institute, which includes three of the first anti-amyloid clinical trials in North America. He has been a Principal Investigator on a 15-year NIH-funded program in Alzheimer's drug discovery. Other basic research programs under his direction include beta-amyloid metabolism; amyloid precursor protein biology; presenilin and apoliprotein neurobiology; isoprostanes; hormonal influences on beta-amyloid formation, and the role of statins in alpha secretase activation. His laboratory is currently developing primate models of amyloidogenesis and has recently published results of beta-amyloid vaccination in rhesus monkeys. He also serves as the Chair of the National Medical and Scientific Advisory Council for the Alzheimer's Association.
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Michael L. Shelanski , M.D., Ph.D.
Michael is the Francis Delafield Professor of Pathology (in the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior and the Taub Institute) at Columbia University. He serves as the Chairman of the Department of Pathology, Co-Director of the Taub Institute and Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program. He is a member of the American Association of Neuropathologists, the Association of American Physicians and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. His laboratory has been responsible for the identification and purification of several of the major cytoskeletal proteins and has served as a training ground for a number of outstanding scholars in the field of neurodegeneration. The laboratory is currently using a combination of cell biological and molecular biological approaches to unravel the pathways of "cell suicide" or apoptosis in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, to understand the alterations in gene expression which occur in these diseases, and to dissect the regulation of synaptic responses in them. A new line of research in the laboratory focuses on the possible role of neural stem cells in Alzheimer's disease therapeutics.
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Rudolph Tanzi, Ph.D.
Rudy is the Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit, MassGeneral Institute of Neurodegenerative Diseases, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Rudy has been investigating the molecular genetics of human neurodegenerative since 1980. He participated in the pioneering study of Dr. James Gusella that led to the discovery of the Huntington's disease gene in 1983. Subsequently, Rudy's primary focus has been on Alzheimer's disease. His work led to the isolation of the first familial Alzheimer's disease (FAD) gene, the amyloid protein precursor (APP) in 1987; and of another gene in 1995, called presenilin 2. In addition, he collaborated on the isolation of the gene known as presenilin 1. Most recently, Rudy has been investigating the biochemical mechanisms by which defects in the known AD genes cause neurodegeneration in AD and has been working to translate these findings into novel therapies to treat and prevent AD. Numerous awards have recognized his important contributions, including the two highest awards given for research in Alzheimer's disease, The Metropolitan Life Foundation Award for Medical Research and The Potamkin Prize for Research in Pick's, Alzheimer's and Related Disorders.
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Koji Nakanishi, Ph.D.
Koji is Centennial Professor of Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at Columbia University. After receiving his Ph.D. from Nagoya University, he did his postgraduate research at Harvard and taught at three prominent Japanese universities. He returned to the United States in 1969 to establish his natural products research lab at Columbia University and has been a revered figure on campus. He is a former chairman of the department and since 1980 has held the title of Centennial Professor. Having an extraordinarily productive career, he is the author of more than 750 papers and the author, co-author or editor of nine books. He is the recipient of awards by nearly a dozen nations and numerous scientific organizations, including the King Faisal International Award. Moreover, the Nakanishi Prize of the American Chemical Society, a major prize in chemistry was established in his name. Koji developed new pioneering spectrometric methods to analyze natural products, helping to isolate and determine the structure of more than 200 biologically active natural compounds.
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