Know Your References (AD History & Milestones)
The first drug class approved for AD treatment includes donepezil and rivastigmine.
What are Cholinesterase inhibitors?
This phase of drug development primarily assesses safety and pharmacokinetics in small trials.
What is Phase I?
This process provides participants the information to assess the risks and benefits of a trial before enrollment.
What is Informed Consent?
The city credited with developing the first amyloid PET ligand.
Pittsburgh
This principal investigator of the Anti-Amyloid treatment in Asymptomatic AD (A4) trial also performed on Broadway.
Who is Reisa Sperling?
Glenner and Wong are attributed for this seminal discovery in 1984.
What is Amyloid Beta?
This multidomain lifestyle intervention trial inspired the U.S. POINTER study.
What is the FINGER Study?
An agreement between a sponsor and institution outlining legal and financial responsibilities for conducting a trial.
What is a Clinical Trial Agreement (CTA)?
The first prodromal AD trial used this biomarker enrollment criteria.
What is low CSF abeta or high total tau/abeta ratio?
This powerhouse is Co-PI of ALZ-NET and an alumna of Northwestern University here in Chicago.
Who is Maria Carrillo?
This first “disease modifying” immunotherapy trial ran from 2000-2002.
What is AN-1792?
These independent committees review unblinded safety data during a trial.
What is a DSMB or DMC?
This 2024 guidance requirement from the US FDA intended to improve representation in clinical trials.
What is a Diversity Action Plan?
In this year, the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) was launched.
What is 2024?
This Co-PI of US POINTER grew up playing basketball in Texas.
Who is Laura Baker?
This year marked the controversial accelerated approval of Aducanumab.
What is 2021?
This modern trial framework allows multiple therapies to be tested simultaneously under one master protocol.
What is a platform trial?
This individual is authorized to consent on behalf of a participant who loses decision-making capacity.
What is a Legally Authorized Representative (LAR) or a surrogate provider?
This term was coined in 2025 for successful removal of plaques with anti-amyloid therapies.
What is Treatment-related amyloid clearance (TRAC)?
This PI of the vitamin E and Selegiline trial almost became a nun!
Who is Mary Sano?
This recent Phase 2 study announced encouraging results testing which tau therapeutic mechanism?
(What is an antisense oligonucleotide or ASO?)
This statistical design updates the probabilities as trial data accumulates.
What is Bayesian Adaptive Trial Design?
This ethical principle emphasizes the need to balance treatment risk against potential benefit.
What is Beneficence? [will also accept reasonable risk/benefit ratio])
The first plasma biomarker to achieve approval from the FDA for AD diagnosis.
What is Lumipulse G pTau217/ß-Amyloid 1-42 Plasma Ratio?
This former academic trialist was first author for the primary papers for both semagecestat and solanezumab, among others.
Who is Rachelle Doody?