Molecular Biology of Neurodegenerative Diseases: Visions for the Future

David B. Teplow, Ph.D., is a Professor of Neurology, Emeritus, at UCLA and an internationally recognized leader in efforts to understand and treat Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Teplow's group has used a multi-disciplinary approach to determine how neurotoxic peptides, such as the amyloid β-protein (Alzheimer's disease) and α-synuclein (Parkinson’s disease), form neurotoxic structures that kill neurons and to develop the means to block these processes. Dr. Teplow received undergraduate training at UC Berkeley; a Ph.D. from the University of Washington; and was a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech. Before coming to UCLA, Dr. Teplow was a faculty member in the Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Teplow has published >250 peer-reviewed articles, books and book chapters, and commentaries, in addition to serving on numerous national and international scientific advisory boards. Dr. Teplow was a founding editor of the Journal of Molecular Neuroscience and Current Chemical Biology, He is Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier serial Progress in Molecular Biology and Translational Science and is Associate Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Neurodegenerative Disease.

• Section I: TARGETTING AD1. Fluid biomarker-based molecular phenotyping of Alzheimer's disease patients in research and clinical settingsKaj Blennow and Henrik Zetterberg2. Tracking down a missing trigger for Alzheimer's disease by mass spectrometric imaging based on brain network analysisMinako Hoshi3. Using mirror-image peptides to enhance robustness and reproducibility in studying the amyloid β-proteinAriel J. Kuhn and Jevgenij A. RaskatovSection II: ETIOLOGY OF AD4. In search of pathogenic amyloid β-peptide in familial Alzheimer's diseaseMichael S. Wolfe5. Biology of splicing in Alzheimer's disease researchKenichi Nagata, Takashi Saito, Takaomi C. Saido and Takashi Morihara6. Acquired cerebral amyloid angiopathy: An emerging conceptMasahito Yamada, Tsuyoshi Hamaguchi and Kenji SakaiSection III: NEUROIMMUNOLOGY OF AD7. Blood-brain barrier and innate immunity in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's diseaseGoran Šimić, Ena Španić, Lea Langer Horvat and Patrick R. Hof8. Gut microbiota mediated allostasis prevents stress-induced neuroinflammatory risk factors of Alzheimer's diseaseSusan Westfall, Umar Iqbal, Maria Sebastian and Giulio Maria Pasinetti9. Neuroimmune interactions in Alzheimer’s disease—New frontier with old challenges?Stefan Prokop, Virginia M.Y. Lee and John Q. TrojanowskiSection IV: AD THERAPY10. Alzheimer's therapy development: A few points to considerEinar M. Sigurdsson11. The next steps in curing Alzheimer's diseaseFred W. van Leeuwen12. Future horizons in Alzheimer's disease researchThomas Wisniewski and Eleanor Drummond13. Why delay in effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease and related conditionsKhalid Iqbal, Fei Liu, ChengXin Gong, Chunling Dai and Wen Hu14. Restoring synaptic function through multimodal therapeuticsRaul Loera-Valencia, Muhammad-Al-Mustafa Ismail, Per Nilsson and Bengt Winblad15. Disease-modifying therapy for proteinopathies: Can the exception become the rule?Gal Bitan16. Combination therapy for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementiasMartin M. BednarSection V: ALPHA-SYNUCLEINOPATHIES17. Can infections trigger alpha-synucleinopathies?Christopher T. Tulisiak, Gabriela Mercado, Wouter Peelaerts, Lena Brundin and Patrik Brundin18. Prion-like propagation of α-synuclein in neurodegenerative diseasesAiri Tarutani and Masato HasegawaSection VI: MODEL SYSTEMS19. Yeast models of neurodegenerative diseasesMick F. Tuite