Dr. Douglas Galasko is a neurologist and a professor in neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego. His clinical practice and research interests focus on the diagnosis and treatment of people with neurodegenerative disorders, in particular, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Lewy Body dementia (LBD). He has helped to develop biomarkers to diagnose and track progression in these disorders, initially using cerebrospinal fluid tests and more recently blood tests. These biomarkers are based on the neuropathological lesions in amyloid and tau proteins in AD and on alpha-synuclein in for PD and DLB. He has helped to study and validate seed amplification assays for alpha-synuclein in PD and DLB. His research has been funded by the National Institutes on Aging, Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and The Michael J. Fox Foundation, and he is an active PPMI site investigator and serves on the PPMI steering committee.