Committee Members

George Perry

The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA

Dr. George Perry is dean of the College of Sciences and Professor of Biology at The University of Texas at San Antonio. Dr. Perry is recognized in the field of Alzheimer's disease research particularly for his work on oxidative stress. He received his bachelors of arts degree in zoology with high honors from University of California, Santa Barbara. After graduation, he headed to Scripps Institution of Oceanography and obtained his Ph.D. in marine biology under David Epel in 1979. He then received a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Cell Biology in the laboratories of Drs. Bill Brinkley and Joseph Bryan at Baylor College of Medicine where he laid the foundation for his observations of abnormalities in cell structures. In 1982, Dr. Perry joined the faculty of Case Western Reserve University, where he currently holds an adjunct appointment. He is distinguished as one of the top Alzheimer's disease researchers with over 800 publications, one of the top 100 most-cited scientists in neuroscience and behavior and one of the top 25 scientists in free radical research. Dr. Perry has been cited over 55,000 times and is recognized as an ISI highly cited researcher. Dr. Perry is editor for numerous journals and is editor-in-chief for the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences and past-president of the American Association of Neuropathologists, as well as a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. Perry is recognized internationally for his work. He is a Foreign Correspondent Member of the Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences and a Foreign Member of the Mexican National Academy of Sciences, and recent recipient of the National Plaque of Honor from the Republic of Panama Ministry of Science and Technology

Rajendra Badgaiyan

University of Minnesota, USA

Dr. Rajendra D. Badgaiyan is a Professor (Tenured) of Psychiatry at University of Minnesota. Dr. Badgaiyan graduated from Gandhi University with the degrees of MBBS, MD along with MA (Bhopal University) and completed his residency training in Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Badgaiyan is a distinguished member of various renowned societies including Society of Nuclear Medicine, American Psychiatric Association, Society for Neuroscience and many more. He has authored more than 100 peer reviewed journal articles and has the credit of more than 100 presentations.

Jin Jun Luo

Temple University, USA

Dr. Jin Jun Luo, MD, PhD, FAAN, FAANEM, is Professor of Neurology, director of EMG and Neuromuscular Medicine at Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA, USA. Dr. Luo is board certified in Neurology, Clinical Neurophysiology, Neuromuscular Medicine and Electrodiagnostic Medicine. Dr. Luo is a fellow member of American Academy of Neurology and American Association of Neuromuscular and Electrodiagnostic medicine, and a member of the Philadelphia Neurological Society and American Clinical Neurophysiology Society. Dr. Luo serves the Editor-in-Chief of Neurological Cases and the Journal of Neurology and Experimental Neuroscience. Dr. Luo is interested in clinical and translational neuroscience research.

Othman Ghribi

North Dakota School of Medicine, USA

Dr. Othman Ghribi has completed his Ph.D in Neuropharmacology in 1994 at the University René Descartes, Paris France, and postdoctoral studies from The University of Quebec (1996-1999). Dr. Ghribi then joined the Department of Pathology at the University of Virginia (1999-2004) and the Department of Basic Sciences at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine in 2004.
He has published more than 70 papers in reputed journals and serving on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Current Alzheimer’s disease the Journal of Neurodegenerative Diseases. Dr. Ghribi’s current research focuses on the role of environmental factors (chemical and dietary) and genetic susceptibility in the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. He specifically focuses on the potential role of endoplasmic reticulum stress and lipid dyshomeostasis in generating neurodegeneration.

Xianmin Zeng

The Buck Institute for Research on Aging, USA

Dr. Xianmin Zeng is a leading stem cell biologist with expertise in neural development of human embryonic stem cells (ESC) and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) and has published more than 70 papers on ESC/iPSC research. One of her research focuses is to study neural/neuronal development in human and to model neurodegenerative diseases, with a focus on Parkinson’s disease, using patient-specific and engineered isogenic iPSC lines. She has developed scalable processes of generating functional CNS cells and PNS cells for cell replacement therapy and screening drugs of neurotoxic and/or neuroprotective effects. She is a recipient of several major funding by California Institute for Regenerative Medicine including a translational grant to develop clinically grade dopaminergic neurons from pluripotent stem cells for Parkinson’s disease.
She received her PhD in Molecular Biology from the Technical University of Denmark in 2000 and had her postdoctoral training in neurobiology at the National Institutes of Health in 2000-2055. She joined the faculty of the Buck Institute in 2005 where she builds the Institute’s Stem Cell Program. She received early tenure in 2009 and has been the Director of North Bay Shared Research Laboratory for Stem Cell and Aging at the Institute since 2008. She is also the Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of XCell Science Inc, a biotech company dedicated to providing reagents and services in neural space.

Rudolph J Castellani

University of Maryland School of Medicine, USA

Rudy J. Castellani, is professor of pathology at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, Maryland, where he also serves as Director of Neuropathology, Director of Autopsy Services, Program Director of the Pathologist's Assistant Graduate Program, and Associate Director of the Pathology Residency Program. Dr. Castellani serves as Chair of the Veterans Administration, Neurobiology Study Section. He is the former Vice President (2006–2008) and former President (2008–2010) of the Maryland Society of Pathologists. He is recognized in the field of Alzheimer's disease and prion disease research, particularly for his work on oxidative stress, mitochondria dysfunction, cell cycle re-entry, and genotype-phenotype correlations.He is distinguished as one of the top Neuropathologists in the world. His many honors include the Alzheimer Medal, the Golden Chair Award from the American Association of Neuropathologists, the Wall of Fame award for excellence in teaching at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and Educator of the Year from the Michigan State University Department of Neurology and Ophthalmology.

Kenneth Blum

University of Florida, USA

Dr. Kenneth Blum is currently Chairman of the Board and Chief Scientific Officer of LifeGen, Inc. San Diego, California and managing partner of Reward Deficiency Solutions, LLC, San Diego, California. He was formerly Full Professor of Pharmacology, University of Texas at San Antonio, Texas for 23 years (retired). He is currently Full Professor of the Department of Psychiatry and McKnight Brain Institute University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville Florida. He served as Research Professor in the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Wake forest College of Medicine, Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He serves as scientific Director, PATH Foundation, NY, New York. He has received numerous awards including NIDA Career Teacher Award; American Chemical Society Speakers Award; Gordon Conference Research Award; Presidential Excellence award (National Council of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse). Dr. Blum has authored and edited eleven books, was an editor-in-chief of an Elsevier Journal, and has published over 400 peer reviewed papers. Coined (Brain Reward Cascade and Reward Deficiency Syndrome RDS) and is credited as the lead author in the first association of the Dopamine D2 receptor gene with severe alcoholism (JAMA, 1990). He is considered by many as the father of Psychiatric Genetics and Neuroadaptagen Amino-Acid Therapy (NAAT). Dr. Blum holds both US & foreign patents on Nutrigenomics. He serves on 7 editorial boards and is the associate editor on two boards including section editor of Integrative Omics and Applied Biotechnology journal and is an ad hock reviewer for 40 journals world-wide.

Ahmad Salehi

Stanford Medical School, USA

Dr. Ahmad Salehi is a clinical Professor at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford Medical School, and the Director of the Translational Laboratory at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. In 2010, he received the World Technology Award in the field of Biotechnology form the World Technology Network in New York. He has numerous publications in peer-reviewed and high impact factors international journals from which, six have been featured on the cover.

WK Tang

Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Professor WK Tang was appointed to professor in the Department of Psychiatry, the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2011. His main research areas are Addictions and Neuropsychiatry in Stroke. Professor Tang has published over 100 papers in renowned journals, and has also contributed to the peer review of 40 journals. He has secured over 20 major competitive research grants. He has served the editorial boards of five scientific journals. He was also a recipient of the Young Researcher Award in 2007, awarded by the Chinese University of Hong Kong.