Thursday, October 23 – 08:15 AM

David Roberston Invited Lecture
Dr. Christopher Power

Christopher Power M.D., F.R.C.P.C is a Professor of Neurology at the University of Alberta, holds the Toupin Chair in in Neurocognitive Disorders and is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy.of Health Sciences. He received a B.Sc. (Hons.) from the University of Toronto and an M.D. from the University of Ottawa and subsequent training in medicine and neurology at McMaster University and the University of Western Ontario, respectively, with postdoctoral fellowships at Johns Hopkins University and the National Institutes of Health in neurovirology. Dr. Power is an internationally recognized clinician-scientist, focused on the causes and potential treatments of neuroinflammatory diseases including NeuroHIV, NeuroCOVID, and multiple sclerosis. Aside from leading the Laboratory for Neurologic Infection and Immunity, he is also an attending neurologist in the University of Alberta HIV and MS Clinics together with Co-Director of the University of Alberta MS Centre. He holds grants from the CIHR, MS Canada, University Hospital Foundation, and is the author of over 250 peer-reviewed publications with an h index of 83.

Friday, October 24 – 1330 PM

Neuropathology in Practice Forum Invited Speaker
Dr. Peter Schutz, University of British Columbia

Dr. Peter Schutz is a highly skilled Neuropathologist, specializing in the laboratory diagnosis of disease. Working within the laboratory at a major hospital or diagnostic laboratory in Vancouver, BC, he collaborates closely with clinicians across various specialties.  

He graduated with an MD from Universitaet Wien in 2004 and holds specialty certification as a Neuropathologist. Dr. Schutz also maintains certifications including Certification by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, underscoring his commitment to professional excellence and continuous education in the field of pathology.

Dr. Benjamin Ellezam, University of Montreal

Dr. Ellezam completed a neuroscience PhD, MD, and anatomic pathology residency at Université de Montréal, followed by a neuropathology fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center/Methodist Hospital and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston. Since 2012, he has served as staff neuropathologist at Sainte-Justine Hospital and associate clinical professor in the Department of Pathology and Cell Biology at Université de Montréal. His practice focuses on neuromuscular pathology, with more than 200 adult and pediatric muscle biopsies reviewed annually, and his research centers on myositis in mixed connective tissue disease.

He founded and directs the Sainte-Justine Biobank for Research on Diseases of the Nervous System, whose scope was recently expanded to include neuromuscular disorders and expected to include over 1,000 muscle biopsy specimens.

Saturday, October 25 – 0800 AM

Gordon Mathieson Lecture
Dr. Ian Mackenzie, University of British Columbia

Ian R. A. Mackenzie is a Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of British Columbia and is Head of the Division of Neuropathology at Vancouver General Hospital. Dr. Mackenzie’s research focuses on the neuropathology and genetics of neurodegenerative disease with special interest in the molecular basis of FTD and ALS. He established and is lead investigator of the UBC FTD research program. Major accomplishments include co-PI on studies that identified granulin as a major FTD causing gene, collaborator on research that identified TDP-43 as the pathogenic protein in most cases of FTD and ALS, PI of studies identifying FUS/FET as the pathological protein in most cases of tau/TDP-negative FTD and co-PI on studies that identified mutations in C9orf72 as the most common genetic cause of both ALS and of FTD. He has led an international consortium of neuropathologists which developed a molecular classification system for FTD. He has published more 300 peer-reviewed research papers and 20 book chapters. He has been included on the Thomson Reuters’s list of “Highly Cited Researchers” and “The World’s Most Influential Scientific Minds” since 2014 and he received the 2017 Margolese National Brain Disorders Prize. He is an editorial board member of several international neuroscience journals, is a past President of the Canadian Association of Neuropathology and past Vice President of the formed International Society for Frontotemporal Dementias.

Saturday, October 25 – 8:50 AM

Invited Guest Lecture
Dr. Rosa Rademakers, VIB

Dr. Rosa Rademakers received her BSc in Biology (1997) and MSc in Biochemistry (1999) from the University of Antwerp, Belgium, followed by a PhD in 2004. After postdoctoral training at the same institution, she joined the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, in 2005, where she became a full Professor in the Department of Neuroscience in 2014. In 2019, she returned to Belgium as Scientific Director of the VIB-UAntwerp Center for Molecular Neurology and Professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Antwerp.

Her research focuses on the molecular genetics of neurodegenerative diseases, particularly frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). She played a pivotal role in identifying GRN and C9ORF72 as major causal genes in FTD and ALS. Her lab integrates genomic, transcriptomic, epigenomic, and proteomic approaches on brain tissue to uncover disease mechanisms and modifiers. She leads international consortia investigating genetic risk and penetrance in FTD, and has published over 450 peer-reviewed articles. Her contributions have been recognized with the Potamkin Prize, the Sheila Essey Award, and the Paolo Gontijo Medicine Award.

Saturday, October 25 – 10:00 AM

Invited Lecture
Dr. Edward Lee, University of Pennsylvania

Edward B. Lee, M.D., Ph.D., graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford and earned his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He trained in Anatomic Pathology and Neuropathology before joining Penn’s Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine in 2011, where he is now a Professor. He serves as Co-Director of the Institute on Aging, Associate Director of the Penn Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and Director of both the CNDR Brain Bank and the Translational Neuropathology Research Lab. His research focuses on Alzheimer’s disease, FTD, ALS, and trauma-related brain injuries. He also continues to serve as a diagnostic neuropathologist at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Lee has made key discoveries, including defining TDP-43 loss in FTD/ALS, identifying vacuolar tauopathy linked to VCP mutations, and pioneering cryo-electron tomography for human brain tissue, authoring over 250 publications. He has received numerous NIH grants and a Clinical Scientist Development Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. He serves on editorial boards including Acta Neuropathologica, JNEN, Free Neuropathology, Neuropathology and Applied Neurology, and JCI Insight. He is currently the President of AANP, and chairs the NIH study section, CMND. A committed mentor, he has trained 42 researchers, served on over 55 thesis committees, and directs a national NIA-funded workshop for neuropathology trainees. Dr. Lee is dedicated to fostering interdisciplinary collaboration to better understand aging and to develop new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases.

Saturday, October 25 – 10:50 AM

Jerzy Olszewski Invited Lecture
Dr. Eric Smith, University of Calgary

Dr. Eric Smith is Professor of Neurology, Radiology, and Community Health Sciences at the University of Calgary, and the holder of the endowed Katthy Taylor Chair in Vascular Dementia. He directs the Cognitive Neurosciences Clinic at Foothills Medical Centre in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Dr. Smith is a member of the Steering Committee of the 5th Canadian Consensus Conference on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia, Research Executive Committee of the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging (ccna-ccnv.ca; Canada’s federally funded national dementia research network), and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Canadian Consortium of Centres for Clinical Cognitive Research (c5r.ca; a national dementia clinical trials network). He has been the site principal investigator (PI)
for numerous trials in Alzheimer’s disease and dementia at the University of Calgary. His investigator-initiated research program seeks to understand vascular contributions to Alzheimer’s disease and dementia through clinical trials, cohort studies, and epidemiological studies on aging, often employing imaging biomarkers. He has more than 600 peerreviewed publications, with an H index of 133 on Google scholar.

Saturday, October 25 – 11:40 AM

Invited Lecture
Dr. Julie Schneider, Rush University

I am The Deborah R. And Edgar D. Jannotta Presidential Professor of Pathology (Neuropathology), and Neurological Sciences at Rush University Medical Center and, and in addition to being the Director, I am the Neuropathology Core Leader of the Rush Religious Orders Study, Clinical Core, and Latino Core which are part of the Rush ADRC grant. I am also the senior neuropathologist of the Rush Memory and Aging Project (MAP) (R01AG017917) and Rush Minority Aging Research Study (MARS) (R01AG022018) since inception. I have been Director of the Rush ADRC since 2022 and was formerly Associate Director.

I am board-certified in both Neurology and Neuropathology, have a Master’s in Clinical Research/Epidemiology and have extensive experience in studies and analyses incorporating neuropathology data and expertise. I have over 500 peer-reviewed publications, 5 book chapters, and have extensive experience collaborating with national and international researchers, on multicenter grants, NIH and foundational workshops, peer-reviews, and partnerships with industry. My research incorporates neuropathology, epidemiology, imaging, biomarkers, and molecular research with a focus on pathologic factors in cognitive decline, mixed pathologies, the role of vascular, LATE pathologies. My current activities specifically focus on inflammation and neurodegeneration in the hippocampus, and leverage neuropathology to advance biomarker development and understanding of risk and mechanisms of neurodegeneration.