Tharick A Pascoal
Assistant Professor UPitt
Seminars
Tuesday 3rd February 2026
The Use of TauPET & Blood GFAP in Clinical Trials & Practice to Enable Earlier Change Detection & Smaller Alzheimer’s Trials
10:30 am
- Leveraging biomarker stratification and early change detection through integrated analysis of cognitive and functional scores to reduce trial duration and enhance patient engagement.
- How close are Tau PET and blood GFAP being accepted as primary end‑points to enable smaller sample sizes once validated?
Thursday 5th February 2026
Panel Discussion: Genetics-Guided Risk Talks & Real-World Barriers: Driving Smarter Uptake of Disease-Modifying Therapies in Neurodegeneration
9:00 am
- Weighing how genetic risk factors such as APOE-ε4 in Alzheimer’s and LRRK2, GBA, or Parkin variants in Parkinson’s influence both treatment response and side-effect risk to help clinicians and patients make more informed therapy choices
- Examining real-world barriers to uptake of novel disease-modifying therapies across Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, including safety concerns (e.g., ARIA or off-target toxicities), monitoring burden, cost, and modest efficacy to highlight what truly drives or limits prescription and patient acceptance
- Knowing that earlier intervention before symptoms offers the greatest potential benefit, what screening or risk‑scoring approaches could expand pre‑symptomatic use while keeping the risk‑benefit ratio acceptable?
