Nilüfer Ertekin-Taner, MD, PhD is Enterprise Chair of Neuroscience and a Professor of Neurology and Professor of Neuroscience at Mayo Clinic. She is a physician-scientist with seminal contributions to the field of Alzheimer?s disease (AD) and related neurodegenerative conditions. Her innovative, groundbreaking work combining complex genomics and deep endophenotypes is essential for the discovery of molecular disease mechanisms, new treatments and biomarkers for these devastating and currently incurable conditions.
She has pioneered the endophenotype approach in genetic studies of AD, starting with the establishment of amyloid ? peptide levels as quantitative biological phenotypes. Dr. Ertekin-Taner?s research laboratory applies leading-edge ?big-data? analytic approaches to biological traits including gene expression levels, quantitative neuropathology and cognitive scores in a combined fashion with genome, transcriptome and epigenetic data to uncover multi-omics risk factors for neurodegenerative conditions. She leads many studies to uncover the interactions of co-morbidities, sex, race and ethnicity with multi-omics factors in AD and related disorders (ADRD). These studies are fundamentally important to launch precision medicine models of care for these complex, multi-factorial diseases.
Dr. Ertekin-Taner has been continually funded by the National Institutes of Health and foundations, having served or serving as a Principal Investigator (PI) on 35 grants with total extramural grant support of >$30 million since 2008. She leads multiple collaborative projects aimed at gene and pathway discoveries in AD and other neurodegenerative diseases, as part of the NIH initiatives Accelerating Medicines Partnership Alzheimer?s Disease (AMP-AD), Molecular Mechanisms of the Vascular Etiology of AD (M2OVE-AD) and Resilience-AD consortia. Dr. Ertekin-Taner is the PI of the Florida Consortium for African-American Alzheimer?s Disease Studies (FCA3DS). Most recently, she leads an NIH-funded, multi-institutional effort to discover brain transcriptional alterations in nearly 700 participants from African American and Latino American populations for therapeutic target discovery in AD, a first of its kind study in these understudied groups.
Recognized as a thought leader with expertise and accomplishments both as a scientist and a board-certified neurologist; Dr. Ertekin-Taner serves on numerous executive committees and advisory boards. She is the first and only external member of the Executive Committee for the landmark Framingham Heart Study. She serves on the External Advisory Board for TREAT-AD Consortium, which is tasked with finding new therapies for AD and comprised of two multi-institutional research centers. She was an invited Chair at the 2018 NIH AD Research Summit, and also served on its Writing Committee, which established the national research directions and milestones for AD.
As a clinician, Dr. Ertekin-Taner works as a dual board-certified behavioral neurologist in the Memory Disorders Clinic at Mayo Clinic Florida. In that capacity, she evaluates and manages patients with AD and other neurodegenerative diseases. Her multi-faceted roles as a physician, scientist and educator pave the way to improve the quality of care for patients and their families.
Dr. Ertekin-Taner received her medical degree from Hacettepe University Medical School in Ankara, Turkey and her doctorate degree in Molecular Neuroscience from Mayo Graduate School. She completed her residency training in the Department of Neurology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN and fellowship in Behavioral Neurology at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL.
@DrNErtekinTaner, #NETanerLab
Lab Webpage: https://www.mayo.edu/research/labs/genetics-of-alzheimers-disease-and-endophenotypes
Dr. Ertekin-Taner Mayo Clinic Bio: https://www.mayo.edu/research/faculty/taner-nilufer-m-d-ph-d/bio-00027318
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilufer-ertekin-taner-30037b152/