Dale E. Bredesen, MD, is internationally recognized as an expert in the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Founding president and chief executive officer of Buck Institute for Research on Aging, he is director of the Easton Center for Alzheimer ’s Disease Research and the principal investigator for the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at University of California Los Angeles.
A postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner, Bredesen also established the Alzheimer’s Drug Development Network (ADDN) with Dr. Varghese John in 2008, leading to the identification of new classes of therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease.
Bredesen's group has developed a new approach to the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, and this approach has led to the first description of reversal of symptoms in patients with MCI and early Alzheimer’s disease, with the MEND protocol. The Bredesen Laboratory continues to study basic mechanisms underlying the neurodegenerative process, and the translation of this knowledge into effective therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative conditions, which led to the publication of more than 200 research papers.
Bredesen’s research has led to new insights that explain the erosion of memory seen in Alzheimer’s disease, and have opened the door to a new therapeutic approach. This work has led to the identification of several new therapeutic candidates that are currently in pre-clinical trials.
“Our hope is to develop treatments that will successfully reset the imbalance in the memory-making, memory-breaking processes that we believe leads to Alzheimer’s disease.”—Dale E. Bredesen