50 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s This will triple by 2050

Dr. Albert Agro is a seasoned biotech executive with a strong background in human biology and medicine. He holds a B.S. from Iowa State University and an A.B. from the University of Guelph, followed by a Ph.D. in Medicine from McMaster University. Over the course of his career, he has founded three companies, led two to successful IPOs, overseen two acquisitions, and contributed to the filing of six NDAs. With extensive experience in drug development, he is committed to advancing innovative therapeutics, particularly in the field of Klotho-based programs. Guided by his belief that “a stellar team of biotech veterans and a drug development squad that is second to none will result in a Klotho program with the best chance of success,” Dr. Agro continues to lead groundbreaking initiatives in the biotech industry.

Dr. Dubow is the acting Chief Medical Officer of Jocasta Neuroscience and is a Managing Principal of Clintrex Research, LLC, a division of Tox Strategies. He has more than 20 years of clinical trial experience as an Investigator and in the pharmaceutical industry, mainly as a biotech Chief Medical Officer. He has served as the chief medical officer and a member of the executive management committee for over a dozen companies in either a full-time or acting role. He has extensive experience in clinical development, medical affairs, business development and regulatory affairs and has worked on over 20 new drug applications in the United States, Europe, Australia, Japan and Canada.

Dr. Dubow has been involved in dozens of regulatory interactions with the FDA and ex-US regulatory agencies. Through investor relations work, he has helped companies raise over 1 billion dollars.

Dr. Dubow attended medical school and completed training in Neurology at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. He then completed fellowship training in movement disorders and vascular neurology at Evanston Northwestern Healthcare in Chicago and Weil Cornell Medical College/New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York.

Michael H. Davidson, MD FACC, is Professor of Medicine and Director of the Lipid Clinic at the University of Chicago. He also serves as Founding Chief Executive Officer of New Amsterdam Pharma.

Dr. Davidson is a leading expert in the field of Lipidology. He has conducted over 1000 clinical trials, published more than 350 medical journal articles and written three books on Lipidology. His research background encompasses both pharmaceutical and nutritional clinical trials including extensive research on statins, novel lipid-lowering drugs, and omega-3 fatty acids. Dr Davidson is a serial biotech entrepreneur, founding three companies, Chicago Center for Clinical Research, which became the largest investigator site in the United States and was acquired by Pharmaceutical Product Development in 1996, Omthera Pharmaceuticals in 2008 that was acquired by Astra Zeneca Pharmaceutical in 2013 for $440M and most recently, he was CEO/CSO of Corvidia Therapeutics which was acquired by Novo Nordisk for up to $2.1B in 2020. In August 2020, he became the founding CEO of New Amsterdam Pharma based in Amsterdam and Adventura, Florida. New Amsterdam Pharma was listed on the NASDAQ (NAMS) in November 2022 with a market cap > $2B. He is also an Independent Director of NASDAQ listed Tenax Therapeutics and Silence Therapeutics. He also serves on the board of two private biotech companies, Sonothera and NanoPhoria Bioscience .

Dr. Davidson is board-certified in internal medicine, cardiology, and clinical lipidology. He was President (2010-2011) of the National Lipid Association, named as one The Best Doctors in America for the past 20 years and “Father of the Year” by the American Diabetes Association, 2010

Todd Verdoorn, Ph.D. has more than 20 years of experience leading public and private biopharmaceutical companies developing new treatments for neurological and psychiatric diseases. He has an extensive track-record of progressing pipeline products from preclinical development into initial human trials, including Phase 2 proof-of-concept studies. Serving as Head of Research or Chief Scientific Officer, Todd has contributed to over 10 first-in-human regulatory approvals in the US, Europe and the Far East, helped raise over $100 million in investment capital, and served as CSO for a company that achieved a successful NASDAQ IPO. Todd earned his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, conducted post-doctoral research under Bert Sakmann, the 1993 winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, and served as Associate Professor of Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He is the author of numerous primary research publications, reviews, and book chapters and is an inventor of multiple patents and patent applications.

Before co-founding Jupiter, Ned co-founded Syrrx (acquired by Takeda), Achaogen (NASDAQ: AKAO), Kythera Biopharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: KYTH, acquired by Allergan), UNITY Biotechnology (NASDAQ: UBX), companies that together created four approved medicines (ALOGLIPTIN, TRELAGLIPTIN, ZEMDRI, and KYBELLA). Ned earned his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology at UC Berkeley and his AB in Biology from Harvard College. Ned is an inventor on 70 allowed patents.

Peter Attia, MD, is the founder of Early Medical, a medical practice that applies the principles of Medicine 3.0 to patients with the goal of simultaneously lengthening their lifespan and increasing their healthspan.

He is the host of The Drive, one of the most popular podcasts covering the topics of health and medicine.

He is also the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, Outlive: The Science and Art of Longevity.

Dr. Attia received his medical degree from the Stanford University School of Medicine and trained for five years at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in general surgery. He spent two years at the National Institutes of Health as a surgical oncology fellow at the National Cancer Institute, where his research focused on immune-based therapies for melanoma

Yan Poon is a scientist, entrepreneur, and visionary leader whose career spans cutting-edge research, biotechnology innovation, and successful company building. He holds dual undergraduate degrees in Molecular & Cell Biology and Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and earned his PhD in Biophysics from the California Institute of Technology.

Dr. Poon has founded and/or held leadership roles in transformative ventures such as Sapphire Energy, Unity Biotechnology, Confluence Therapeutics, and is an entrepreneur-in-residence at Venrock.

Driven by purpose and collaboration, Dr. Poon is guided by a personal mission: “Assembling and leading teams towards a shared mission is a great passion of mine. That mission is simple – improve the planet and the lives of people.” His work reflects a deep commitment to advancing human health through innovation, leadership, and a relentless pursuit of excellence.

Dr. Reiman is CEO of Banner Alzheimer’s Institutes, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona, University Professor of Neuroscience at Arizona State University, Senior Scientist at the Translational Genomics Research Institute, Director of the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium, a leader of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Initiative (API), co-founder of ALZPath, and Chairman of the Flinn Foundation Board of Directors.

A psychiatrist and brain imaging researcher by background, his interests include brain imaging, blood-based biomarker, APOE and genomics research, the unusually early detection, tracking, and study of Alzheimer’s and related diseases, the accelerated evaluation of Alzheimer’s prevention therapies, and new models of research collaboration and clinical care. He is an author of >700 publications, a principal investigator of several large NIH grants, other grants, and contracts, a former member of NIA Council, and a recipient of the Potamkin Prize.

MAKOTO KURO-O obtained his M.D. in 1985 and Ph.D. in 1991 from University of Tokyo. During his post-doctoral fellowship, he discovered a new gene Klotho that accelerated aging when disrupted in mice. In 1998, he moved to University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas (UT Southwestern) as an Assistant Professor of Pathology to pursue Klotho protein function. He revealed that Klotho served as the receptor for fibroblast growth factor-23 (FGF23), a phosphaturic hormone indispensable for maintaining phosphate homeostasis, and identified phosphate as a pro-aging factor in mammals. Furthermore, he showed that Klotho-related protein (Klotho) served as the receptor for the other endocrine FGFs, FGF19 and FGF21, that induced metabolic responses to feeding and fasting, respectively.

He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2006 and Professor in 2012. He returned to his home country in 2013 as Professor and Director of Center for Molecular Medicine in Jichi Medical University in Japan. His current major research interest is to understand the mechanism by which phosphate accelerates aging and to develop novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of age-related disorders by targeting the FGF-Klotho endocrine axes.  

Tony Wyss-Coray is the D. H. Chen Distinguished Professor of Neurology and Neurological Sciences and the director of the Phil and Penny Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at Stanford University. His laboratory studies brain aging and neurodegeneration with a focus on age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s disease. The Wyss-Coray research team discovered that circulatory blood factors can modulate brain structure and function and that blood or cerebrospinal fluid from young organisms can rejuvenate old brains while old blood factors promote brain aging. They documented extensive exchange of circulatory proteins with the brain, and they showed that organ derived proteins in blood predict organ specific disease, risk for dementia, and mortality.

Wyss-Coray’s findings were voted 2nd place Breakthrough of the Year in 2014 by Science Magazine and presented in talks at Global TED, the World Economic Forum, Google Zeitgeist, and Tencent’s WE Summit in China. Wyss-Coray is the co-founder of Alkahest, a company developing plasma-based therapies to counter age-related diseases including Alzheimer’s as well as several other biotech companies. Current studies in his lab focus on understanding how the immune system and the organism as a whole age and communicate with the brain. Putting humans at the center of his studies Wyss-Coray integrates genetic, cell biology, and proteomics approaches and

models them in cell culture and model organisms. Ultimately, he tries to understand brain aging and disease at an individual level to develop tailored diagnostic and therapeutic tools.

Lee Rubin is Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology at Harvard University and Co-Director of the Neuroscience Program at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. His work focuses on neurodegenerative and neuromuscular disorders and has a strong translational focus. Currently, his efforts are focused on producing muscle stem cells to treat muscular and neuromuscular disorders and, importantly, on discovering therapeutics capable of reversing the degenerative changes associated with brain aging.

Dr. Rubin received his PhD in Neuroscience from the Rockefeller University and had postdoctoral training, also in Neuroscience, at Harvard Medical School and Stanford University School of Medicine.

Dr. Saul Villeda is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anatomy and Endowed Professor in Biomedical Science at the University of California San Francisco and serves as Associate Director of the Bakar Aging Research Institute. He obtained his B.S. degree from the University of California Los Angeles, his PhD degree in Neuroscience from Stanford University, and started his independent career at the University of California San Francisco as a Sandler Fellow. Dr. Villeda has made the exciting discovery that the aging process in the brain can be reversed by altering levels of circulating factors in blood. Dr. Villeda’s research is best known for the use of innovative heterochronic parabiosis and blood plasma administration approaches to investigate the influence that exposure to young blood-derived or exercise-induced circulating factors has in promoting molecular and cellular changes underlying cognitive rejuvenation. His work has garnered accolades that include a National Institutes of Health Director’s Independence Award, the W.M. Keck Foundation Medical Research Award, the Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging, and the McKnight Innovator Award in Cognitive Aging.

Scott A. Small MD is the Director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Columbia University. Dr. Small’s lab focuses on disorders that effect the hippocampus, a brain circuit targeted by Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and the normal wear & tear of the aging process (‘cognitive aging’). The lab first developed novel MRI tools applicable to patients and animal models that were used to pinpoint the parts of the hippocampal circuit differentially affected by each disorder (Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 2011). This anatomical information was then used as a guide to uncover pathogenic drivers (Neuron, 2014): Retromer-dependent endosomal recycling in Alzheimer’s disease, dietary flavanols in cognitive aging, and the glutamate metabolic cycle in schizophrenia. Most recently, his lab has been developing interventions and biomarkers for each disorder, and the lab’s discoveries were the cornerstone for the formation of a new biotechnology company, Retromer Therapeutics.

Dena B. Dubal MD, PhD is a physician-scientist, Professor of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco and serves as the David Coulter Endowed Chair in Aging and Neurodegenerative Disease. Dr. Dubal received her BA (anthropology and molecular neuroscience) from UC Berkeley – and her MD and PhD degrees from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. She completed a medical internship and neurology specialty training at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she served as chief resident. Dr. Dubal further trained as a dementia specialist at UCSF for a Behavioral Neurology Fellowship at the Memory and Aging Center.  

Dr. Dubal directs a laboratory at UCSF focused on mechanisms of longevity and brain resilience that integrates genetic and molecular approaches to investigate aging and neurodegenerative diseases, in animal models and human populations. Her team discovered that Klotho enhances the brain in aging and in models of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Her team also discovered novel and fundamental roles for the X chromosome in brain resilience to aging and disease.

Dr. Dubal’s discoveries are published in top-ranked journals such as Nature, Nature Aging, and Science Advances and have been profiled in high-visibility media such as the New York Times, The Economist, NPR, Wired, and Scientific American. Her work is recognized for its potential toward therapies to live longer and better.

Among her honors, Dr. Dubal received the NIA/AFAR Paul Beeson Award for Aging Research, Glenn Award in Biologic Mechanisms of Aging, Grass Award in Neuroscience, and Neuroendocrine Research Award. She served on the Board of the American Neurological Association and currently serves in the leadership of JAMA Neurology, the Board of the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research, and the Board for the Weill Institute of Neuroscience.