Rutgers Leads International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Israel

A Rutgers-led conference on Alzheimer's disease held in Tel Aviv, Israel, earlier this month provided a platform for leading researchers and students from both the United States and Israel to share their latest findings on understanding, preventing, and treating Alzheimer's.

The brainchild of Mark Gluck, professor of Neuroscience at Rutgers University-Newark and Michal Schnaider Beeri, professor of Neurology at Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences, the conference's primary goal was to expand collaboration between American and Israeli scientists seeking a cure for Alzhiemer's disease. 

The meeting was hosted locally by Tel Aviv University and organized by Illana Gozes, professor of Molecular Genetics, with support from Hermona Soreq, professor of Molecular Neuroscience at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Scientists and doctors travelled from Nigeria, the United Kingdom, Germany and the across the United States to attend the meeting. 

"The fight to cure Alzheimer's disease cuts across national and political divisions," said Gluck, "It provides us with common goals and targets on which we can all work together."  

This is the third brain research conference that  Gluck has organized in Israel. The first two were in 2005 and 2008.

At the conference, Gluck presented his research on lifestyle, genetics and environmental influences on Alzheimer’s risk in older African Americans.  Beeri discussed her findings on the role of the glycoproteome in cognitive decline. 

In addition to presentations by the four conference chairs, other speakers included Michal Schwartz from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel; Amos Korczyn of Tel Aviv University, Israel; Gil Rabinovici of the University of California, San Francisco; David Bennet of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago; Mary Sano from Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Among their presentation topics were defeating Alzheimer’s disease by harnessing systemic immunity, comparing the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease in Jews and Israeli-Arabs, and charting a path to precision medicine for Alzheimer’s disease. 

In addition, 35 students gave talks and presentations. “The real engines of collaboration tend to be the graduate students and postdoctoral fellows,” Gluck said. 

Gluck and Beeri hope to leverage the conference to bring more Israeli graduate students to Rutgers and other U.S. universities to receive advanced postdoctoral training in neuroscience and neurology.