The Chicago Council on Science and Technology and the Children’s Hospital of Chicago Research Center Present:
“Alzheimer’s and Aging: Our Fragile Minds“
Please join us for an evening program with New York Times Best-Selling Author of Still Alice, Lisa Genova, and featured panelist Marsel Mesulam, MD, Director of the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Northwestern University. Keynote speaker Lisa Genova will highlight the effects of Alzheimer’s on patients and their families, as well as the changes inside the brain. Featured panelist Dr. Mesulam will discuss the latest scientific and research advances, prognosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s. Monica Moreno will represent the Alzheimer’s Association on the panel and will discuss programs for early-stage constituents and questions regarding the care industry and direct caregivers. The program will be moderated by Julie Schneider, MD, Associate Professor of Neurology and Neuropathology at Rush Medical Center.
Where: Location change! Lincoln Hall, Northwestern University School of Law, 375 East Chicago Ave.
When: Tuesday December 4, 2012
4:30pm – 5:30pm Registration
5:30pm – 7:00pm Presentation
7:00pm – 8:00pm Reception & Book Signing
7:30pm Dinner with Lisa Genova – Dinner immediately following the book signing reception at the Rubloff Atrium.
RSVP for this dinner is required. $50 per plate. Please email or call Marlo Carthen, mcarthen@c2st.org / 312.567.5835 regarding your reservation. Seating is limited. Please RSVP no later than Wednesday, November 28.
Discounted parking will be made available to the first 150 attendees at 222 E. Huron St.
Fees Apply: $10 C2ST Members, Children’s Hospital of Chicago Research Center staff, and Alzheimer’s Association Greater Illinois Chapter members; $15 Non-Members; Free for students
Register at C2ST’s event registration site
Still Alice received critical acclaim, including the 2008 Bronte Prize and was a finalist in the general fiction category of the 2008 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. It was a winter 2009 Barnes and Noble Discover Pick; a Jan. 2009 Indie Next Pick; and a Feb. 2009 pick in both the Borders and Target book clubs.
“Genova is the master of getting into the heads of her characters, relating from the inside out…brilliantly. A well-told tale from a keen medical mind.” —USA Today
Bestselling Author and Neuroscientist Dr. Lisa Genova is the author of The New York Times best-selling novels Still Alice and Left Neglected. Genova’s debut is an undeniably poignant story about a lesser known form of Alzheimer’s Disease—the early-onset form that affects people is their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s. Powerful and compelling, the book has been hailed as “moving and haunting,” “a work of pure genius,” “insightful, tragic, inspirational”and “heartbreakingly real.” Her latest work, Left Neglected has received immense praise from the press and esteemed authors such as Jodi Picoult, Jacquelyn Mitchard, and Brunonia Barry. As both a trained neuroscientist and a woman who watched her grandmother suffer through Alzheimer’s, Genova deftly marries science and compassion within Still Alice as her protagonist, 50-year-old Alice Howland, unravels at the hands of earlyonset Alzheimer’s Disease. The novel begins
with Alice in the prime of her life—she’s a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard and a world renowned linguistics expert with an equally successful husband and three grown children. But the disease takes hold swiftly, and we cannot help but read on to watch it change Alice’s relationship with her family and the world —forever. A remarkable celebration of life, love, family, and the intricacies of the human mind, Still Alice will spark private thoughts, public conversations and hopefully raise awareness of this debilitating disease.
Genova graduated valedictorian from Bates College with a degree in Biopsychology and has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University. She has done research on the molecular etiology of depression, Parkinson’s Disease, drug addiction, and memory loss following stroke. She is a proud and active member of the Dementia Advocacy & Support Network International and DementiaUSA and is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer’s Association.
Register at C2ST’s event registration site
Featured panelist, Marsel Mesulam, MD:
Marsel Mesulam received the degrees of Bachelor of Arts in 1968 and Medical Doctor in 1972, both from Harvard University. He was appointed Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School where he founded and led the Behavioral Neurology Unit of Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital. In 1994 he was appointed the Dunbar Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry and the Director of the multidepartmental Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.
His research has addressed the neural connectivity of the monkey brain, the organization of human cholinergic pathways, the representation of cognitive functions by large-scale neurocognitive networks, and the neurobiology of dementias. He introduced a new method for tracing neural pathways by axonal transport, identified the source of cortical cholinergic pathways in the primate brain, and characterized a unique form of language-based dementia known as primary progressive aphasia.
He received the Javits Award from the National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke, the Director’s Award from the McKnight Foundation, the Wartenberg Lectureship Award from the American Academy of Neurology and the Lishman Award from the International Neuropsychiatry Association and the Bengt Winblad Life Achievement Award from the Alzheimer’s Association. He has been included in multiple lists of “America’ Top Doctors” and “Chicago’s Best Doctors.”
His students and trainees hold leadership positions in the US and abroad. He has published more than 300 research papers and edited a popular textbook of Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology. He is a past Vice President of the American Association of Neurology and a past President of the Organization of Human Brain Mapping. His current research focuses on the functional imaging of neurocognitive networks and on the pathophysiology of focal dementias.
Register at C2ST’s event registration site
Panelist, Monica Moreno
Monica Moreno is director of early-stage initiatives for the Alzheimer’s Association national organization. As director, Ms. Moreno oversees all national programs and strategies serving early-stage constituents. Prior to this position she served as the Association’s associate director of corporate initiatives, where her primary responsibility was to develop and manage relationships with leading national organizations in the care industry, and she also lead the strategic direction for the Association’s safety services department. She has over fifteen years of experience working with people with dementia and their families. Ms. Moreno is the co-author of a chapter in the book Evidence-Based Protocols for Managing Wandering Behavior and an article for the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias on expanding participation in the Association’s Safe Return® Program.
Register at C2ST’s event registration site
Moderator, Dr. Julie A. Schneider
Dr. Julie A. Schneider is an Associate Professor of Pathology (Neuropathology) and Neurology at Rush University Medical Center and Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center. She completed her Neurology training at the University of Chicago and Neuropathology training at Emory University in Atlanta and is board certified in both specialties. Dr. Schneider has fellowship training in the neuropathology of dementia, is certified in Geriatric Neurology, and has a Masters Degree in Clinical Research with a focus in Epidemiology. She is the Associate Director and Neuropathology Core Leader of the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center and the senior neuropathologist of the Religious Orders Study, the Rush Memory and Aging Project, and the Minority Aging Research Study. Dr. Schneider has extensive experience with clinical-pathologic epidemiologic studies of aging and dementia with over 140 peer-reviewed publications and 4 book chapters. Her research focuses on how Alzheimer’s disease and vascular brain pathology contribute to cognitive decline in the old and oldest old. Dr. Schneider is also investigating genetic risk factors and cognitive decline associated with TDP-43 pathology, a recently recognized pathologic brain protein that accumulates with aging and Alzheimer’s disease.
