I have run a small lab at The Salk Institute for many years.  My undergraduate degree is in chemistry, Ph.D. is in immunology, and my early career was in cell biology and electrophysiology.  I went on to study growth factors, which led to work based upon protein chemistry and proteomics.  For the past decade the laboratory has been working on cell death pathways associated with glutamate toxicity and AD.  Much of the early work on the basic biology of the amyloid precursor protein and Aβ toxicity was from my laboratory.  This work led to the desire to develop drugs for AD and related conditions such as Parkinson's disease.  Therefore, we have developed the expertise to do the necessary medicinal chemistry, assays and pre-clinical laboratory work required for this work and have an excellent publication record in this area.