SynAD Executive Committee

Alzheimer’s disease is increasingly understood as a multifactorial disease of insidious onset, with influences including biological, medical, genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors interacting across decades of the human life span. ADRD, by definition, is even broader in origins, trajectories and clinical outcomes. SynAD is committed to the proposition that much ADRD research can achieve a deeper scientific impact and broader public application when it is collaborative and perhaps especially when innovative research questions can advance rapidly or drive novel cross-pillar investigations. The SynAD executive committee is uniquely positioned to engage the broader University of Alberta ADRD community in research and community activities that accelerate traditional research or bridge the traditional pillars of research.

The committee is distributed across multiple departments and faculties at the University of Alberta and are all active members of our institutional partner, the Neuroscience and Mental Health Institute (NMHI Director: Dr. Doug Zochodne), including the special emphasis panel on Alzheimer’s, Dementia, and Prion Disease.

SynAD is also integrated provincially and nationally. Provincially, SynAD executive committee members are involved in such broader initiatives as Campus Alberta Neuroscience (Dr. Jack Jhamandas is Chair of CAN). Nationally, some SynAD executive committee members are among the leaders of such organizations as Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (CCNA, Drs. Roger Dixon and Richard Camicioli are among the Leaders of CCNA) and the Brain Canada Research Program for the Identification of Ganglioside Biomarkers and Neuroprotective Mechanisms in Huntington’s Disease (Dr. Simonetta Sipione is Lead PI).

Professionally, the SynAD committee is actively engaged in research in complementary aspects of ADRD, including brain aging, mild cognitive or motor impairment, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and prion diseases.  We have a well-grounded home base in NMHI and a promising collaborative foundation, with numerous joint research projects and publications, but our goal is to expand beyond the current committee to include many other colleagues in NMHI.

The following list introduces the current SynAD Executive Committee.

Principal Investigator

Roger A. Dixon, PhD
Professor of Psychology (Science)
Website: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~vlslab/DixonHomepage/index.html
Example Publication: Badhwar A, McFall GP, Sapkota S, Black S, Chertkow H, Duchesne S, Masellis M, Li L, Dixon RA, Bellec P. A multiomics approach to heterogeneity in Alzheimer’s disease: Focused review and roadmap. Brain 2020;143(5):1315-1331. doi:10.1093/brain/awz384

Co-Principal Investigators

Jack Jhamandas, MD, PhD
Distinguished Professor of Medicine (Neurology, FoMD)
Website: https://www.ualberta.ca/medicine/about/people/jack-h-jhamandas
Example Publication: Soudy R, Patel A, Fu W, Kaur K, MacTavish D, Westaway D, Davey R, Zajac J, Jhamandas J. Cyclic AC253, a novel amylin receptor antagonist, improves cognitive deficits in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s & Dementia (N Y) 2016;3(1):44-56. doi:10.1016/j.trci.2016.11.005

Satyabrata Kar, PhD
Professor of Psychiatry (FoMD)
Website: https://www.ualberta.ca/faculties/centresinstitutes/prion-centre/faculty-and-staff/satyabrata-kar
Example Publication: Kodam A, Ourdev D, Maulik M, Hariharakrishnan J, Banerjee M, Wang Y, Kar S. A role for astrocyte-derived amyloid β peptides in the degeneration of neurons in an animal model of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Brain Pathology 2018 (in press). doi:10.1111/bpa.12617 

Simonetta Sipione, PhD
Associate Professor of Pharmacology (FoMD)
Website: https://www.ualberta.ca/pharmacology/people/faculty/sipione-detail
Example Publication: Alpaugh M, Galleguillos D, Forero J, Morales LC, Lackey SW, Kar P, Di Pardo A, Holt A, Kerr B, Todd KG, Baker GB, Fouad K, Sipione S. Disease-modifying effects of ganglioside GM1 in Huntington’s disease models. EMBO Molecular Medicine 2017;9(11):1537-1557. doi:10.15252/emmm.201707763

David Westaway, PhD
Director, Centre for Prions and Protein Folding Diseases
Website: https://www.ualberta.ca/prion-centre/faculty-and-staff/david-westaway.html
Example Publication: Eskandari-Sendighi G, Daude N, Gapeshina H, Sanders DW, Kamali-Jamil R, Yang J, Shi B, Wille H, Ghetti B, Diamond MI, Janus C, Westaway D. The CNS in inbred transgenic models of 4-repeat Tauopathy develops consistent tau seeding capacity yet focal and diverse patterns of protein deposition. Molecular Neurodegeneration 2017;12(1):72. doi:10.1186/s13024-017-0215-7

Co-Investigators

Richard Camicioli, MD
Professor of Medicine (Neurology, FoMD)
Website: https://www.ualberta.ca/medicine/about/people/richard-camicioli
Example Publication: Montero-Odasso M, Sarquis-Adamson Y, Speechley M, Muir-Hunter S, Sposato L, Wells J, Borrie M, Camicioli R. “Gait and Cognition syndrome” and the risk of dementia in the Gait & Brain Study. Alzheimer’s & Dementia (N Y) 2017;13(7):P577. doi:10.1016/j.jalz.2017.07.199

Elena Posse de Chaves, PhD
Professor of Pharmacology (FoMD)
Website: https://www.ualberta.ca/pharmacology/people/faculty/possedechaves-detail
Example Publication: Mohamed A, Viveiros A, Williams K, Posse de Chaves E. Abeta inhibits SREBP-2 activation through Akt inhibition.
Journal of Lipid Research 2018;59:1-13. doi:10.1194/jlr.M076703

Valerie Sim, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine (Neurology, FoMD)
Website: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~vsim/
Example Publication: Norman G, Campeau J, Sim VL. High dose and delayed treatment with bile acids ineffective in RML prion-infected mice. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 2018;62(8):e00222-18. doi:10.1128/AAC.00222-18

SynAD Coordinator

Jill Friesen
Contact: SynAD@ualberta.ca