Bio
Dr. Shannon D. R. Ringenbach received her B.Pe. at McMaster University and her Ph.D. at Purdue University and has been an Associate Professor in the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University for 25 years. She heads the Sensorimotor Development Research Lab, which is currently investigating Assisted Cycle Therapy (ACT) and its effects on motor, cognitive, physical and mental health in a persons with Down syndrome across the lifespan.

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Dr. Costa received his MD from the State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and PhD (Biophysics) from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. He did his Postdoctoral training at University of Maryland School of Medicine (Pharmacology) and Baylor College of Medicine (Neuroscience). He is Research Professor of Psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University, and recipient of multiple prestigious awards, including the International Sisley-Jerome Lejeune Award. He has dedicated the past 27 years of his academic career to Down syndrome research. His work focuses on translational research in Down syndrome in search for potential pharmacological therapies to enhance cognition and/or prevent the development of Alzheimer-type dementia. His research program has been one of very few in this field to bridge the divide between basic and clinical research. He is the leading proponent of the glutamatergic hypothesis for Down syndrome. During his career, he has held several leadership roles, including the recent lead investigator roles in three clinical trials in which he supervised groups of physicians and psychologists in different hospital settings. He is currently Chair of the Clinical Research Committee for the Trisomy 21 Research Society (T21RS), which is the largest professional society dedicated to Down syndrome research in the world.

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Dr. Granholm-Bentley has a broad background in neurodegenerative disease, especially as it pertains to neurodegeneration and aging. She have been funded by the NIH for more than 30 years and have more than 170 peer-reviewed articles; most of them related to aging and neurodegeneration including Down syndrome (DS). Dr. Granholm-Bentley have an h-index of 62 and have been cited close to 14,000 times. I have more than 30 years of experience working with neurodegenerative disorders. She is currently funded by the NIA to work on tau pathology in individuals with Down Syndrome and Alzheimer’s disease and have focused my recent work on novel biomarkers for neurodegenerative conditions, especially neuron-derived exosome (NDE) biomarkers for DS and DS-AD. Dr. Granholm-Bentley was a founding Chair for the Professional Interest Area (PIA) for DS-AD at the international ISTAART organization, with members from 30 countries. Leading PI for a funded biobank consortium (DSBC) focused on brain donations from persons with DS throughout the lifespan, with 11 sites in the USA and Europe and one in India. The Chair for the Neuropathology work group in the International T21 Research Society (T21RS).