Mark Gurney received his PhD from Caltech and his MBA from Kellogg. He was on the faculty of The University of Chicago and Northwestern University, was Director, Genomics Research at Pharmacia Upjohn and Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery and Development for deCODE genetics. He has published 116 peer-reviewed articles which have over 16,000 citations. He holds 35 patents and was named a leading inventor for Alzheimer’s therapeutics.

Eric Nelson, PhD is a business development consultant to the NINDS Office of Translational Research program. He assists NINDS-funded PIs in making sure that ther drug projects are ready for industry partnerships. Before working with the NINDS he was a consultant with the NCATS Therapeutics for Rare & Neglected Diseases (TRND) program, helping to build the overall program and assemble a pipeline of 15 drugs for rare and neglected diseases. Previou