NIH Director’s Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series

Florence Mahoney Lecture on Aging.

Quiroz will discuss how longitudinal studies conducted with Colombian families with autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease have informed biomarker research, disease prevention, and treatment development.

An associate professor in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Quiroz currently serves as director of the MGH Multicultural Assessment and Research Center and the Multicultural Alzheimer's Prevention Program-MAPP. She is also principal investigator on the NIH-funded COLBOS (COLombia-BOSton) biomarker study that follows individuals from the world's largest extended family with a single, Alzheimer's-causing mutation (E280A in Presenilin1).

Her findings have helped researchers re-conceptualize Alzheimer's as a sequence of changes that begins decades before cognitive decline, and which may be targeted by promising disease-slowing treatments and prevention strategies at a time in which they might have their most profound effect.

Quiroz hails from Colombia, South America, where she earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Antioquia, Medellin, Colombia. She also holds a Master's in Cognitive Neuroscience and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, both from Boston University. Her postdoctoral training was in Clinical Neuropsychology, Department of Neurology and Psychiatry, at Massachusetts General Hospital; where she joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital where she remains.

Quiroz has been recognized broadly for her research, including with the NIH Director's Early Independence Award, an MGH Research Scholar Award, and the Alzheimer' Association's Inge Grundke-Iqbal Award for Alzheimer's Research.

The NIH Mahoney lecture is named in honor of Florence Stephenson Mahoney (1899–2002), who devoted much of her life to successfully advocating for the creation of NIA and increased support for NIH.

For more information go to https://oir.nih.gov/wals