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Alzheimer's Clinical
Trials Consortium

Our mission is to provide an optimal infrastructure, utilizing centralized resources and shared expertise, to accelerate the development of effective interventions for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD).

ACTC Organization

ACTC infrastructure includes expertise in study design and conduct, and full clinical trial management capabilities through our coordinating center and network of trial sites.
Efficient
Through centralization of resources and processes, we develop and utilize efficient solutions.
Innovative
We consider novel clinical trial designs, leveraging innovative cognitive, biomarker, neuroimaging outcomes, and data sharing.
Diverse
Our Inclusion, Diversity and Education in Alzheimer’s Disease – Clinical Trials (IDEA-CT) Unit and Recruitment, Engagement, and Retention Unit promote inclusion in all ACTC activities.
Experienced
Our investigators and sites have extensive experience conducting and enrolling ADRD clinical trials.
Collaborative
With each clinical trial’s lead investigator, we build a strong collaborative team to design and conduct trials.

ACTC Members

Member Sites

Our member sites are high performing and experienced clinical trial sites that receive infrastructure support from ACTC.

Units

Our dedicated Units are the driving force behind the day-to-day conduct of ACTC and oversee the development and execution of our clinical trials.

Committees

ACTC Committees are composed of experts in the field and advise investigators and study teams during the development and conduct of our clinical trials.

Reisa Sperling,

MD, MMSc

Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Dr. Reisa Sperling is a neurologist focused on the detection and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease at the pre-symptomatic or “preclinical” stage. Dr. Sperling is a Professor in Neurology at Harvard Medical School, and Director of the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Sperling is the co-Principal Investigator of the Harvard Aging Brain Study, with Dr. Keith Johnson, at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She co-leads the Alzheimer Clinical Trial Consortium (ACTC), the NIA funded academic Alzheimer trial consortium, with Dr. Paul Aisen at University of Southern California, and Dr. Ron Petersen at the Mayo Clinic. For ACTC she also is also Co-Chair of the Inclusion, Diversity and Education in Alzheimer’s disease – Clinical Trials (IDEA-CT) Committee, and is a member of the Project Evaluation Committee (PEC). Dr. Sperling chaired the 2011 NIA-Alzheimer’s Association workgroup to develop guidelines for the study of “Preclinical Alzheimer’s disease.” She leads the Anti-Amyloid Treatment in Asymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease (A4) Study - a secondary prevention trial in over 1150 clinically normal older individuals with PET amyloid imaging evidence of early AD pathology, the companion LEARN Study, and two new AD prevention trials with the ACTC. Dr. Sperling received the 2011 Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award, the 2015 American Academy of Neurology Potamkin Prize, and was named one of the 2017 Most Disruptive Women to Watch in Healthcare.

Paul Aisen,

MD

Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute, USC

Paul Aisen, M.D., is a member of the ACTC Leadership team, with oversight over the ACTC Coordinating Center at USC ATRI.  He chairs the Project Feasibility Committee, and serves as a PI on the ACTC-affiliated TRC-PAD Program, and the A3 and A45 Studies. Dr. Aisen founded ATRI in 2015. Aisen has been a leading figure in Alzheimer’s disease research for more than two decades, having developed novel methodologies as well as designed and directed many large therapeutic trials. He received his B.A. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard and his medical degree from Columbia. He completed his residency at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, and then fellowship training in rheumatology at New York University. After serving as chief medical resident at Mount Sinai, he began a solo practice in internal medicine and rheumatology in New York. Aisen joined the faculty of Mount Sinai in 1994 and was recruited to Georgetown University in 1999 as a professor of neurology and medicine. That year, he founded the Memory Disorders Program, a clinical and research program for Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders. He continued basic research studies on therapeutic targets and biomarkers and designed and directed multicenter therapeutic trials. He became vice chair of the Department of Neurology at Georgetown in 2004. From 2007 through 2015, he was professor in the Department of Neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study.

Ron Petersen,

MD, PhD

Department of Neurology Mayo Clinic, Rochester

Ronald C. Petersen, M.D., Ph.D., focuses on investigations of cognition in normal aging, mild cognitive impairment and dementia. Dr. Petersen and his colleagues evaluate cognitive changes in normal aging as well as in a variety of disorders involving impairment in cognition, such as Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal lobar degeneration and Lewy body dementia. Dr. Petersen directs the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, both of which involve the study and characterization of aging individuals over time with an emphasis on neuroimaging and biomarkers.

Laurie Ryan,

PhD

National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health

Dr. Laurie Ryan is Chief of the Dementias of Aging Branch in the Division of Neuroscience at the National Institute on Aging, part of the NIH. She oversees the development, coordination, and implementation of NIA’s translational and clinical Alzheimer’s disease research program. Dr. Ryan also directs the Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials research portfolio. Dr. Ryan received her BA in Human Development from St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 1986 and her Masters in Psychology from Loyola College in Maryland in 1991. She undertook doctoral training in clinical psychology with specialty focus in neuropsychology at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. She completed a neuropsychology-focused psychology residency at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston and clinical neuropsychology fellowship at Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia. After completing her fellowship, Dr. Ryan joined the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center (DVBIC) at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC. In 2003, Dr. Ryan became the Assistant Director for Research where she was responsible for overseeing clinical research development and implementation with a particular focus on clinical trials. In September 2005, Dr. Ryan joined the NIA as the Program Director for Alzheimer’s clinical trials. In December 2013, she was promoted to her current position.