The Doctors.

MEET THE HEROES IN THE LAB.

For most of its known history, Alzheimer’s disease has been a widely misunderstood and overlooked disease. But there have been a few notable exceptions.

Imagine you’re a doctor. Into your clinic walks a 40-year-old man who no longer remembers how to do a job he’s done every day since he was 18. Or a mother of eight who can’t figure out how to diaper her baby and keeps forgetting to pick up her older kids from kindergarten. Would you suspect you were looking at Alzheimer’s disease?

From turn-of-the-century Germany to 1960s France, from the dangerous countryside of Colombia to the oil fields of North Dakota, doctors were faced with this perplexing medical mystery. Some battled extremely long odds to move the science forward, inch by inch, in a disease that received little attention and even less funding.

Today, as we stare down a looming global pandemic, these are the minds whose work could lead us to the solution.

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Francisco Lopera leads Ken Kosik and Lucia Madrigal on a visit to research family members in rural Colombia.
The author (center) with Francisco Lopera (left) and Ken Kosik (right) at Kosik’s lab, the University of California-Santa Barbara.
Ken Kosik, Lucia Madrigal, and Francisco Lopera. They worked for decades with members of a family in Colombia who carry the PS1 mutation for Alzheimer’s.
Francisco Lopera (left) and Ken Kosik (middle) ride through Colombia to visit members of the largest known family with a genetic mutation for Alzheimer’s. In the back is Lucia Madrigal, a longtime member of Lopera’s research team.
Bill Klunk and Chester Mathis, around the time they discovered Pittsburgh Compound B, which allows researchers to view Alzheimer’s in a living brain.
Pierre Tariot (left) and Eric Reiman (right), of the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix. Their studies focus on early intervention as a means of preventing Alzheimer’s.
Chester Mathis (left) and Bill Klunk (right), the University of Pittsburgh team who discovered a way to view Alzheimer’s in a living brain.
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