Alzheimer's Researcher Dr. Eric Reiman Named 2010 Rock Star Of Science By GQ

Eric M. Reiman, M.D., Executive Director of the Banner Alzheimer's Institute, has been recognized as a 2010 Rock Star of Science, joining a select group of scientific leaders and actual rock stars in a campaign to celebrate biomedical research. Dr. Reiman is internationally recognized for his contributions to brain imaging research, the unusually early detection and tracking of Alzheimer's disease, and the effort to find demonstrably effective treatments to prevent Alzheimer's symptoms as soon as possible. He appears in the December "Men Of The Year" issue of GQ magazine.

"It is an unusual honor, to help underscore the importance of medical research, and to help attract the very best students to science and medicine," Dr. Reiman said. "I'm neither a rock star nor a solo act, but I am grateful to my family, colleagues, and research participants for chance to pursue my professional dreams."

Dr. Reiman also serves as Chief Scientific Officer at the Banner Research Institute, Clinical Director of the Neurogenomics Division at the Translational Genomics Research Institute, and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Arizona. His research interests include brain imaging, genomics, the unusually early detection, tracking & study of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and the rapid evaluation of AD-modifying and prevention therapies. He and his colleagues have argued that it takes too many healthy people and too many years to evaluate treatments to prevent AD, and they have proposed a new paradigm to evaluate promising prevention therapies more quickly than otherwise possible.

Dr. Reiman and his colleagues have proposed scientific strategies and public policies to find demonstrably effective treatments to prevent Alzheimer's disease as quickly as possible. Their Alzheimer Prevention Initiative is designed to evaluate some of the most promising prevention therapies sooner than otherwise possible in people who, based on their age and genetic background, are at the highest imminent risk of developing Alzheimer's disease symptoms. It is also designed to provide the evidence needed to rapidly evaluate the range of promising prevention therapies using brain imaging and other biological measurement of the disease, long before the onset of memory and thinking problems.