Michael Weiner, MD

Michael Weiner, MD, is a Professor Emeritus in Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Medicine, Psychiatry, and Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. He is Principal Investigator of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, which is the largest observational study in the world concerning Alzheimer's Disease. He is the former Director of the Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases (CIND) at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center. After graduating from the Johns Hopkins University in 1961, he obtained his M.D, from SUNY Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, New York in 1965, and he completed his internship and residency in Medicine from Mt. Sinai Hospital in 1967. From 1967-1968, Dr. Weiner completed a residency and clinical fellowship in Metabolism from Yale-New Haven Medical Center. From 1960-70 he was a research fellow in Nephrology at Yale. From 1970-71 he was a postdoctoral fellow in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin Institute for Enzyme Research. In 1972, he became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Renal Section from the University of Wisconsin Institute and from 1971-1973 he was a Research Associate of the Veterans Administration. In 1973 he was awarded a Clinical Investigatorship of the Veterans Administration. In 1974 he became an Assistant Professor of Medicine (Nephrology) at Stanford University. In 1976 he was a visiting scientist in the laboratory of Sir Hans Krebs in Oxford, England. In 1980 he became an Associate Professor of Medicine (Nephrology) at UCSF. In 1983, he established the Magnetic Resonance Unit at the San Francisco VA Medical Center, which became the Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases in 2000. In 1990, he became a Professor of Radiology, Medicine, Psychiatry and Neurology at UCSF.

Dr. Weiner’s research activities involve the development and utilization of MRI and PET for investigating and diagnosing neurodegenerative diseases. In 1980, he was one of the first to perform MRS on an intact animal, and subsequently pursued his goal to develop MRI/S as a clinical tool. In 1988, his group used MRS to show that the amino acid N acetyl aspartate (NAA), a marker of healthy nerve cells, is reduced in the epileptic focus in the brain. In 2004, Dr. Weiner's group reported that reduced NAA predicts development of Alzheimer's disease in mildly impaired elderly subjects. During the past 30 years he has worked to develop and optimize the use of MRI, PET, and blood-based biomarker methods to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. Also, Dr. Weiner’s research focuses on monitoring effects of treatment to slow progressions in Alzheimer’s disease, and detecting Alzheimer’s disease early in patients who are not demented, but risk subsequent development of dementia. He is the Principal Investigator of the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, a 19-year national longitudinal study of over 2,200 subjects which is aimed at validating biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease at 60 sites across the USA and Canada for cognitive testing, MRI, PET, and lumbar puncture. He also launched the BrainHealthRegistry.org which is an internet-based registry with the overall goal of accelerating development of effective treatments for brain diseases. This website registry recruits, screens, and longitudinally monitors brain function on more than 100,000 participants. His overall research goals are to participate in the development of effective treatments and methods for early detection of Alzheimer's disease and other brain disorders. Recently he has focused on developing inexpensive, scalable, tools to identify normal elders at risk for cognitive decline and dementia. Dr. Weiner has mentored over 150 postdoctoral fellows, has authored 960 peer reviewed research papers and 71 book chapters. He has received numerous honors including the Young Investigator Award of the American College of Cardiology in 1976, and more recently, the Nancy and Ronald Regan Award from the Alzheimer’s Association, the Potamkin Prize of the American Academy of Neurology, a Docteur Honoris Causa Degree from Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France in 2019, and the Henry Wisniewski Lifetime Achievement Award in Alzheimer's Disease Research, from the Alzheimer's Association in 2021.