Dr. Klein is Professor of Neurobiology and of Neurology at Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts and Science and Feinberg School of Medicine. His team’s discoveries have illuminated the mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases, particularly Alzheimer’s disease, and they have resulted in new approaches to diagnostics and therapeutics. Central to this work is their paradigm-shifting idea that Alzheimer’s is not driven by plaques but by amyloid beta oligomers (AβOs), which are much smaller than plaques and more insidious. AβOs come from amyloid beta, a harmless brain peptide, whose aberrant self-association gives rise to this gain-of-function neurotoxin. Dr. Klein’s 170 papers and patents on AβOs have established the link between Alzheimer’s disease and AβO buildup and have been cited more than 35,000 times. Recognized as central drivers of Alzheimer’s, AβOs were the first of many pathogenic protein oligomers subsequently linked to degenerative diseases, including ALS. Akava’s investigational new drug AKV-9 is being investigated by the Klein laboratory to uncover its mechanism of action, which overcomes a disease-causing event that is common to multiple degenerative diseases.
Dr. Klein is Field Chief Editor of Frontiers in Dementia, was former Director of the Northwestern University Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program, and is a co-founder of Acumen Pharmaceuticals. Before coming to Northwestern, he studied membrane biochemistry and bioenergetics at UCLA with Paul Boyer, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, and synaptic signaling and regulation at NIH with Marshall Nirenberg, Nobel Laureate in Physiology-Medicine.