Welcome to the first Diagnostics Accelerator Investigators’ Meeting!
As we mark two years since inception of the Diagnostics Accelerator (DxA), this is an ideal time to bring together our funded investigators, funding partners and the DxA team in an interactive forum to share information about ongoing research, deliberate new ideas, and advance our shared vision of finding easier, more accurate and earlier ways to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.
In July 2018, driven by the conviction that the path to approved Alzheimer’s treatments begins with a better way to diagnose patients, the DxA issued a call to action to the research community to advance bold new ideas to accelerate the development, validation and licensure of affordable and scalable diagnostic biomarkers.
To date we have awarded or earmarked over $35 million to a diverse group of researchers representing academia and industry globally. We have been amazed at the breadth, depth and ingenuity of the research represented as part of the DxA.
Over the next two days, leading academic scientists, entrepreneurs, startup companies, funding organizations, and others who are part of this collaborative effort, will engage in discussion around:
- Cutting-edge science in the field of Alzheimer’s and related dementias
- Methods and targets for minimally-invasive blood tests, ocular tests, and digital tools
- Research highlights and preliminary findings
- Strategies for translating biomarker research into clinical use
We hope that you all will take this opportunity to connect with other cutting-edge researchers, learn from each other, and exchange ideas to further accelerate your research and the field more broadly.
We are grateful for the vision and support of Bill Gates and ADDF’s Co-Founder/Co-Chair Leonard A. Lauder and all the core funders, including the Dolby family, the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation, Jeff Bezos, MacKenzie Scott, and The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration, and others to bring the focus, resources and urgency required to solve this important problem. With $50 million in commitments from our funding partners, there will be many more exciting research awards to come.
But today, we thank each of you for being among the first to respond to our call to action. Together, we can enable the global community to conquer Alzheimer’s disease.
We look forward to a thought-provoking and insightful meeting.
Best Wishes,
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Howard Fillit, MD Founding Executive Director and Chief Science Officer Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation |
Niranjan Bose, PhD Managing Director of Health & Life Sciences Gates Ventures |
Diagnostics Accelerator
These awards focus on true collaboration among renowned clinicians, who are directly involved in patient care and understand the disease, scientists who are developing the tests, and diagnostics companies that understand the regulatory pathways – driving research and product development.
MEETING HIGHLIGHTS

30 Presenters and Chairs

Panel Discussions

Virtual and Live Q&A

Access to meeting by invitation only
PROGRAM AT-A-GLANCE
DAY 1
SESSION I:
Ocular and Emerging Protein Biomarkers of ADRD, Biomarkers for FTD
DAY 2
SESSION II:
Part 1: Molecular Biomarkers of ADRD
Part 2: Digital Biomarkers of ADRD
DAY 3
SESSION III:
Digital and Ocular Biomarkers
Wednesday, October 7, 2020
10:00 – 14:00 US Eastern Time
Thursday, October 8, 2020
10:00 – 14:00 US Eastern Time
Friday, October 9, 2020
17:00 – 18:15 US Eastern Time
PRESENTERS, CHAIRS, HOSTS and ORGANIZERS






Rhoda Au
Boston University
Marta Barrachina
ADmit Tx
Nicole Bjorklund
ADDF
Kaj Blennow
Univ. of GothenburgC
Catherine Bornbaum
RetiSpec
Niranjan Bose
Gates Ventures






Robert Dean
Robert A. Dean Consulting
Yuval Dor
Hebrew University
Chris Edgar
Cogstate
Howard Fillit
ADDF
Hüseyin Firat
Amoneta
Douglas Galasko
UC San Diego






James Gallarda
Dx Consultancy
Wesley Horton
Fdtn for the NIH
Laura Ibanez
Washington Univ.
Lampros Kourtis
Circadic.io
Russell Lebovitz
Amprion Inc.
Thomas MacGillivray
Univ. of Edinburgh






Kristina Malzbender
Gates Ventures
Tatsuyuki Maruyama
KPY Consulting
Carolina Minguillón
Altoida
Laura Mitic
Bluefield Project
Amber Murray
Biological Dynamics
Jennifer Rae Myers
Neurotrack






Erin Norris
The Rockefeller Univ.
Larsson Omberg
Sage Bionetworks
Gregory Penner
NeoNeuro
Shobha Purushothama
ADDF
Ramit Ravona-Springer
Sheba Med Ctr
Blaine Roberts
Emory Univ.






Eliav Shaked
RetiSpec
Kira Sheinerman
DiamiR Biosciences
Eric Siemers
Siemers Integration
Judith Steen
Boston Child’s Hosp.
Bruno Steinkraus
Hummingbird Dx
Sidney Strickland
The Rockefeller Univ.




Peter van Vijngaarden
Ctr for Eye Rsrch
Guoliang Xing
Chinese Univ. of HK
Henrik Zetterberg
Univ. of Gothenburg
Stephan Zicha
Fdt for the NIH
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Nicole Bjorklund, PhD, Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation
Kristina Malzbender, MPH cand., Gates Ventures
Shobha Purushothama, PhD, Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation
Nico Stanculescu, MS, World Events Forum
OUR DONORS
We are grateful for the generosity of donors that made possible the Diagnostics Accelerator Initiative:
Anonymous Donors
Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation
The Dolby Family
Gates Ventures
Jeff Bezos
Leonard A. Lauder
MacKenzie Scott
The Association for Frontotemporal Degeneration
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Diagnostics Accelerator would like to acknowledge the following for generously sharing their time, knowledge and expertise to shape our portfolio:
Diagnostics Accelerator Core Team
External Experts
Joint Steering Committee
Sample Sharing Program Partners
Nicole Bjorklund
Niranjan Bose
Howard Fillit
Kristina Malzbender
Shobha Purushothama
DxA interns:
Andrew Muran
Aishwarya Sukumar
DxA administrators:
Tricia Jester
Aspasia Moundros
Abhishek Agrawal
Rich Christie
Robert Dean
James Gallarda
Lampros Kourtis
Alvydas Mikulskis
Eric Siemers
Niranjan Bose
Howard Fillit
Allan Green
Tetsuyuki Maruyama
Michael Poole
Shobha Purushothama
Susan Baker
Tobias Bittner
Shobha Dhadda
Michael Irizzary
Akihiko Koyama
Simon Lovestone
Masatoshi Takada
Support Personnel
ADDF Grants and Mission Team
ADDF Communications Team
ADDF Science Team