2026 Grand Challenges in Parkinson’s Disease

Thomas Beach is Director of Neuroscience at Banner Sun Health Research Institute (BSHRI) in Sun City, Arizona. He was trained in neuroscience and neuropathology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and did clinical training at UBC, New York Medical College and St. Louis University. He was appointed Assistant Professor at UBC in 1993, moving to Phoenix, Arizona in 1997. Dr. Beach has been the recipient of multiple grants and awards from agencies including the National Institutes of Health, Alzheimer’s Association, the state of Arizona and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. He has been Neuropathology Core Leader of the Arizona Alzheimer’s Disease Center since its inception in 2001. He has been an author on more than 500 publications listed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine. Additionally, he has served industry as a consultant and as a neuropathology core leader for several imaging-to-autopsy FDA-licensing clinical trials. His research is focused on elucidating early neuropathological stages and clinical biomarkers of normal human aging, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. His studies center on the structural and neurochemical changes of the human central and peripheral nervous system, through autopsy, biopsy and neuroimaging.

Dr. Brundin joined Roche in 2022, where he is Therapeutic Area Leader for Movement Disorders, leading discovery research and early development (including Phase II trials) for Parkinson’s (PD) and Huntington’s (HD) diseases. Prior to this, he was at Van Andel Institute, where he was Deputy Chief Scientific Officer and Director of the Parkinson’s Disease Center from 2012 to 2022. He earned his Ph.D. in 1988 and M.D. in 1992, both from Lund University, Sweden, where he also was a full professor 2000-2014. He is highly cited in neuroscience with more than 440 publications, mostly on PD and HD. He contributed to the development and optimization of neural transplantation technology and played a key role in pioneering clinical cell transplantation trials in PD. In addition, his team made several important contributions to the understanding of pathogenesis of HD and PD. He led the seminal discovery of Lewy pathology in grafted neurons in patients and first suggested that alpha-synuclein aggregates propagate between neurons in a prion-like manner in PD. He developed unique animal models of the spread of pathology, mimicking the brain in prodromal PD and he highlighted alpha-synuclein as a therapeutic target for disease-modifying therapies. In 2011-2022, he chaired the International Linked Clinical Trials committee, which pioneered a large program for drug repurposing in PD. He has held several research leadership roles, including being a member of the World Parkinson Coalition Board of Directors and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research Executive Scientific Advisory Board, and advisor for Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s Research. He also served as founding co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease (2011-2022) and is a scientific co-founder of Acousort AB and Kenai Therapeutics (developing iPSC-based transplantation therapy for PD).

Saranna Fanning is an Assistant Professor in Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women’s Hospital. Dr. Fanning received her B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Microbiology from University College Cork (UCC), Ireland, performing her doctoral research at UCC (in the lab of Prof. Douwe van Sinderen), Columbia University, NY (with Prof. Aaron Mitchell), and Carnegie Mellon University, PA. She performed her postdoctoral training in the lab of Dr. Susan Lindquist at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, MIT, MA, and Dr. Dennis Selkoe’s Lab at Harvard Medical School and Brigham & Women’s Hospital. As an Assistant Professor, her lab investigates the role of lipid metabolism in neurodegenerative diseases. She is particularly focused on identifying therapeutic targets for Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Dr. Jensen became a medical doctor from Aarhus University in 1989 and completed a medical internship from 1992-1994 at Aarhus University Hospital. He has been employed at Aarhus University since 1992. Since 2004, he has been a professor in medical biochemistry, currently at the Department of Biomedicine. He was visiting scientist in Dr. Carlos Dotti’s laboratory at European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg, Germany, from 1997-1998. He earned a Dr. of Medical Sciences (equivalent to Ph.D.) in 1998 from Aarhus University. He served as Head of Department of Medical Biochemistry, University of Aarhus, from 2001-2011. Since 2013, he has served as core-principal investigator and founding member of DANDRITE, the Danish Center for Translation Neuroscience, a part of the EMBL Nordic Nodes in Translational Medicine, and since 2024, director hereof. In 2025, he became cofounder of SynuCa Therapeutics, which develops disease-modifying small molecules targeting Ca2+ regulating proteins.

Since 2025, he has been founding member and senior core group leader of Lundbeck Foundation Parkinson’s Disease Research Center PACE at Aarhus University Hospital, where he also is affiliated professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University.
His research focus covers all areas related to a-synuclein aggregation from molecules to clinical studies with a focus on modifiable disease mechanisms and development of tools.
Dr. Jensen has published over 147 original research papers.

Dr. Merz is an adjunct assistant professor in the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases (IND) at UCSF. His group uses cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) and cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) to solve atomic-resolution structures of amyloid filaments formed in patients with neurodegenerative diseases and in animal and cellular systems used to model those diseases. Dr. Merz also focuses on small molecule binding to amyloids, and recently was the first to describe a novel small molecule-protein interaction in which aromatic small molecules bound to amyloid filaments “tilt” to simultaneous satisfy the translational requirements of binding while also stacking to form highly favorable ligand-ligand pi-pi interactions. This motif holds promise for the design and development of diagnostics and therapeutics to treat neurodegeneration. His group has also discovered novel folds of both tau and alpha-synuclein in filaments purified from patients with familial FTDs and MSA. Prior to his faculty appointment at UCSF, Dr. Merz was a postdoc at UCSF working jointly with Dr. Dan Southworth and Dr. Stanely Prusiner. He obtained his Ph.D. in chemistry and chemical biology from Cornell University, under advisor Dr. Brian Crane, where he focused on other structural and spectroscopic techniques, including x-ray crystallography and electron paramagnetic resonance.

Dr. Michael Henderson investigates why some neurons and brain circuits are resilient while others are vulnerable to diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and dementia with Lewy bodies. By uncovering the factors behind these differences, he aims to identify new opportunities to prevent or slow disease progression.

Dr. Darren Moore seeks new diagnostic and treatment approaches for Parkinson’s by investigating genetic risk factors and a range of inherited forms of the disease, which comprise 5% to 10% of cases. He aims to translate the understanding of these genetic mutations and risk factors into new disease-modifying treatments and biomarkers for Parkinson’s, both inherited and sporadic forms. Discoveries from Dr. Moore’s lab routinely elucidate the faulty molecular interactions that transform healthy, functioning neurons into diseased ones.

Dr. Yang Yang employs the latest imaging technologies to illuminate new insights into neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Her research has revealed the structures of critical disease-related protein filaments — an important step toward developing improved treatments.