Dr. Catalano has led drug discovery and development programs in the pharmaceutical industry in neurobiology and oncology for over 17 years. She received her BA from Barnard College and PhD from UC Irvine, with postdoctoral training at UC Berkeley and Caltech. As founder and chief science officer at Cognition Therapeutics, Dr. Catalano guided the discovery and development of the company’s first Alzheimer’s candidate drug CT1812, which is currently in clinical trials.

Prior to founding Cognition Therapeutics, Dr. Catalano was director of Discovery Biology for Acumen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., leading a team that conducted some of the earliest work in the industry on oligomeric proteins. Prior to this, at Rigel Pharmaceuticals, she led a team that pioneered the use of high-content phenotypic screening to discover the Aurora kinase inhibitor R763 for solid tumors, which progressed to the clinic. While a scientist at Roche Palo Alto, she led the Neurophysiology and Neuroimaging groups along with an exploratory program in psychiatric disorders.