Our Team

Anne Fagan, the Fluid Biomarker Core Leader, is a Professor of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine in St.Louis. She received her BA in Psychobiology from Wellesley College and her PhD in Neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego under the mentorship of Dr. Fred “Rusty” Gage where she studied the role of glial cells and trophic factors in rodentmodels of neuronal injury and repair. Following her post-doctoral training at Bristol Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute, she was recruited to Washington University by David Holtzman, MD, to study the role of apolipoprotein E (apoE) in AD. Her interests expanded into human biomarker research in 1997 after she became an investigator at the Knight Alzheimer Disease Research Center. Together with colleagues Drs. Holtzman and John Morris, they initiated visionary, longitudinal studies investigating the potential of a variety of fluid measures as biomarkers of preclinical (antecedent) AD pathology in elderly and at-risk middle-aged cohorts. Evaluation of fluid biomarkers in autosomal dominant AD (Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network, [DIAN]) and itsassociated DIAN Trials Unit (DIAN TU) soon followed, as has the recent expansion into AD due to Down syndrome (Alzheimer’sBiomarkersConsortium –Down Syndrome [ABC-DS]) and early-onset AD (Longitudinal Early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease [LEADS]). Other non-AD multi-site research studies with whom the Fluid Biomarker Core laboratory collaborates include the ARTFL LEFFTDS Longitudinal Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration (ALLFTD) study and the North American Prodromal Synucleinopathy Consortium (NAPS2). Fagan serves on a variety of scientific advisory boards for institutions and companiesinvestigating AD and is the 2019 recipient of the Fellows Award from the Academy of Science –St. Louis in recognition of her “outstanding achievement in science.” A complete list of Fagan’s published work can be found here.