2024 Parkinson's Disease Therapeutics Conference

Vice President, Drug Development | Alto Neuroscience

Bruce Morimoto, PhD, has spent his career leading project teams in developing innovative medicines for neurodegenerative diseases like PD, AD, ALS and FTD. His responsibilities have encompassed a broad range of drug development activities including manufacturing, nonclinical safety testing, regulatory affairs and translational clinical research. Morimoto held leadership roles at Allon Therapeutics, Celerion, Alkahest, and Cerecin. He is on the advisor boards of several biotech companies helping to develop and deploy scientific, regulatory and medical strategy. Morimoto started his career on the faculty in the Chemistry Department at Purdue University. He earned his doctorate in biochemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) under the mentorship of Daniel E. Atkinson, and completed post doctorate training at University of California, Berkeley with Daniel Koshland Jr. 

Chief Scientist | The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research

Mark Frasier, PhD, joined The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) in 2006. As Chief Scientist, Frasier regularly meets with academic and industry researchers around the world to identify promising proposals to support, providing troubleshooting and ongoing management of projects as they go forward. He also supports the Foundation's priority interest in developing biomarkers for Parkinson's disease that will accelerate clinical trials of new drugs. Frasier earned an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Dayton and a PhD in Pharmacology from Loyola University Chicago. He completed his postdoctoral work in the Neuroscience Discovery Research Group at Eli Lilly, Inc., in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he worked on drug-discovery research in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. In addition to his work as a Foundation scientist, Frasier is a Team Fox member, running the New York ING Marathon and playing golf to raise critical funds for research. 

Professor of Neurology, Director, Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders Center| Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine 

Tanya Simuni, MD, joined the faculty of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in 2000 to build a multidisciplinary movement disorders center that is recognized by the Parkinson’s Foundation, Huntington Disease Society of America and Wilson’s Foundation as a Center of Excellence and serves as a training model in the region. She is the lead investigator of a number of clinical trials on experimental pharmacology, non-motor manifestations, and pharmacological management of PD. She serves on a number of Steering Committees for the PD national clinical trials, several committees for PSG and the PF. She is the Site PI and Steering Committee member for the largest PD biomarker initiative (PPMI study) and site PI for the Network for Excellence in Neuroscience Clinical Trials (NEXT). Simuni is an active member of the American Academy of Neurology, American Neurological Association, the Movement Disorders Society as well as the Parkinson’s Study Group.