Clinical Advisory Board

Howard Fillit, MD, is a geriatrician, neuroscientist, and innovative philanthropy executive, who has led the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation since its founding. Dr. Fillit has held faculty positions at The Rockefeller University, the SUNY-Stony Brook School of Medicine and the Cornell University School of Medicine. In 1987, he joined the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he is a clinical professor of geriatric medicine and palliative care, medicine and neuroscience. Dr. Fillit also maintains a limited private practice in consultative geriatric medicine with a focus on Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.

He has authored or co-authored more than 350 publications and is the senior editor of Brocklehurst's Textbook of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology. Dr. Fillit is the recipient of many awards and honors including the Rita Hayworth Award from the Alzheimer's Association. He is a fellow of the American Geriatrics Society, the American College of Physicians, the Gerontological Society of America and the New York Academy of Medicine. Dr. Fillit earned his Bachelor of Arts in neurobiology cum laude from Cornell University and his medical degree from the SUNY-Upstate Medical University.

Suzanne Hendrix, PhD graduated from Boston University with a Ph.D. in mathematics. Dr. Hendrix has worked as a clinical trials statistician, and has now accumulated over 30 years of experience with time spent at CROs and pharmaceutical companies, including projects across many disease areas. Since becoming CEO of Pentara in 2008, Dr. Hendrix has maintained a central focus on analysis of clinical trials for degenerative diseases, especially Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Suzanne has first authored or co-authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications related to both clinical trial results and statistical approaches for clinical trials, many of which include significant contributions to statistical methodology for Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Hendrix also played an important role in the development of ADCOMS, an AD composite score to measure cognitive function in individuals with mild cognitive impairment due to AD. Overall, Suzanne’s main goal for Pentara is to “give studies and clients the best chance of success for effective treatments” by implementing better standards and methods for statistical analysis and study design that guarantee accurate results with clinical data. When asked about what she loves most about her company, Dr. Hendrix emphatically responded, “the people! We have the smartest, nicest people, and I like that we’ve found so many creative thinkers.” In her free time, Suzanne participates in Crossfit, and especially enjoys working out with her kids.

Dr. Michael Weiner is Professor Emeritus of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Medicine, Psychiatry,and Neurology at UCSF. He has been conducting research for more than 60 years and is Principal Investigator of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), and the BrainHealthRegistry.org. In 1980, he was one of the first to perform nuclear magnetic resonance on an intact animal. He then pursued development of MRI/MRS as a clinical tool and established the Magnetic Resonance Unit which became the Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases at the San Francisco VAMC. Dr. Weiner has published over 1,000 peer-reviewed articles, has trained many dozens of postdoctoral fellows, and received numerous honors including the Young Investigator Award of the American College of Cardiology in 1976, and more recently, the Nancy and Ronald Regan Award from the Alzheimer’s Association, the Potamkin Prize of the American Academy of Neurology, a Docteur Honoris Causa Degree from Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France in 2019, and the Henry Wisniewski Lifetime Achievement Award in Alzheimer's Disease Research, from the Alzheimer's Association in 2021.

Henrik Zetterberg, MD, PhD is a Professor of Neurochemistry at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and University College London, UK, and a Clinical Chemist at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden. He is Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry at the University of Gothenburg, leads the UK DRI Fluid Biomarker Laboratory at UCL, and is a Key Member of the Hong Kong Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases and a Visiting Professor in the UW Department of Medicine, School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, Wisconsin. His main research focus and clinical interest are fluid biomarkers for brain diseases, neurodegenerative diseases in particular. He has published more than 2300 scientific articles and received many awards.