Biomarkers

People who primarily work to identify and characterize biomarkers and endpoints for diagnosis and clinical trials.

Taylor Young

Administrative Coordinator

Taylor is an Administrative Coordinator working under the MAC Genetics and Biospecimen manager. 

Ehud Zeltzer

Behavioral Neurology Clinical Fellow

Dr. Ehud Zeltzer joined the Memory and Aging Center (MAC) in 2021. He graduated from the Medical School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2010. He then served as a flight surgeon and clinic commander in the Israeli Air Force until 2015. He completed his Neurology Residency in Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center (Ichilov), where he served as chief resident and passed the Neurology Board Exams with honors.

Miranda Chen

Clinical Research Coordinator

Miranda was born and raised in Palo Alto, California and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in May 2020 with a bachelor of arts degree in molecular and cell biology. At the Memory and Aging Center, she is working as a clinical research coordinator in the Rabinovici Lab to help coordinate studies examining the utility of innovative neuroimaging techniques and other biomarkers for the improved diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

Charles Windon, MD

Assistant Professor

Charles Windon, MD, is an assistant professor of clinical neurology at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. In this role, he participates in the clinical care of those with neurodegenerative disease and also participates in the research evaluations of those referred to the Memory and Aging Center with a multitude of neurological conditions. Charles is also involved in the community outreach program at the MAC, with a particular interest in outreach to underserved communities, especially the African American community within the San Francisco Bay Area.

Adam Staffaroni, PhD

Associate Professor

Dr. Staffaroni is a clinical neuropsychologist and Associate Professor at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. His research focuses on improving early detection, prognosis, and monitoring of neurodegenerative diseases through a combination of clinical tests, neuroimaging, and blood-based biomarkers. He leads studies of remote digital data collection in frontotemporal dementia using smartphone assessments and sensor technologies.

Paul Sampognaro, MD

HS Asst Clinical Professor

Dr. Sampognaro majored in neurobiology as an undergrad at Georgetown University. There, he worked as a research assistant in the laboratory of Maria Donoghue, studying the molecular underpinnings of Eph/ephrin signaling and its role in cortical neuronal development. After college, he matriculated to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he earned his MD and worked part-time in Charlotte Sumner’s laboratory, quantifying the degree of SMN1 insufficiency in humans with spinal muscular atrophy.

Jennifer Yokoyama, PhD

Associate Professor

Jennifer Yokoyama obtained her doctorate degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics from UCSF in December 2010 with Dr. Steven Hamilton (Department of Psychiatry and Institute for Human Genetics). Her dissertation comprised work within the Canine Behavioral Genetics Project, utilizing purebred dogs as genetic models for studying neuropsychiatric disease. Utilizing community-based canine DNA samples, Dr.

Gil Rabinovici, MD

Professor

Dr. Gil Rabinovici holds the Edward Fein and Pearl Landrith Distinguished Professorship in Memory & Aging in the UCSF Department of Neurology. He received his BS degree from Stanford University and MD from Northwestern University Medical School. He completed neurology residency (and chief residency) at UCSF and a behavioral neurology fellowship at the UCSF Memory and Aging Center (MAC), where he cares for patients with cognitive disorders.

Aimee Kao, MD, PhD

John Douglas French Foundation Endowed Professor

Aimee Kao, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco and the John Douglas French Foundation Endowed Professor. She leads an NIH-supported Tau Center Without Walls and directs the UCSF Tau Consortium Human Fibroblast Bank. Dr.

Howie Rosen, MD

Professor

Dr. Rosen is a behavioral neurologist and holds the Dorothy Kirsten French Foundation Endowed Professorship for Parkinsonian and Other Neurodegenerative Disorders. He received his medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine, trained in internal medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and subsequently completed a neurology residency at UCSF. After residency, Dr. Rosen pursued fellowship training in brain imaging at the Washington University School of Medicine, and then returned to UCSF to join the team at the Memory and Aging Center (MAC) in 1999.