Saima Hilal - chair

Assistant Professor of Neurology

Dr. Saima Hilal is currently an Assistant Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore. Trained in epidemiology (MPH) and neurology (MD, PhD), she possesses the ideal combination to explore the aging process of the healthy brain, the development of cerebrovascular disease and neurodegeneration, and the methodologies for studying these processes using brain imaging.

Her primary expertise lies in neuroimaging, epidemiology, plasma-based biomarkers, and cognition in the context of Alzheimer’s disease, stroke, and related disorders. Dr. Hilal’s research focuses on investigating both vascular and neurodegenerative causes of cognitive impairment in both community and hospital-based settings.

She leads two population-based studies: the Neurological Biomarkers of Blood, MRI, and Cognition (NEURO-BMC) study and the Multidimensional Healthy Aging in Population-based study in Singapore. Dr. Hilal has been awarded the prestigious Clinician Scientist Award from National Medical Research Council. Her dedicated passion for neuro-epidemiology and biomarkers of aging research has yielded prolific output, with over 250 publications, including lead authorships in prestigious journals such as JAMA Neurology, Brain, Stroke, Alzheimer’s and Dementia, Neurology, Brain, and the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry.

Assistant Professor of Neuroepidemiology

Anna Marseglia is an Assistant Professor at Karolinska Institutet in the NVS Department, Division of Clinical Geriatrics and Research Collaborator at Mayo Clinic-Rochester. With a background in neuropsychology (B.Sc., M.Sc., Licensed) and a Ph.D. in aging epidemiology, Dr Marseglia brings a uniquely combination of skills to investigate the risk and protective factors for Vascular Cognitive Impairment and dementia (VCID).

Her primary research interests center on identifying risk and protective factors for cognitive disorders associated with cerebrovascular disease, particularly small vessel pathology, and elucidating the underlying molecular mechanisms. Her work also explores key determinants of brain maintenance and cognitive reserve in VCID, with a special focus on factors relevant to women’s health. Her research integrates multidimensional data from both population- and clinical-based cohorts as well as intervention studies.

Dr. Marseglia’s research is supported by high-profile grants in aging and dementia, including funding from the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE), the Center for Innovative Medicine (CIMED), the Swedish Strategic Research Area Neuroscience (StratNeuro), the Collaboratory on Research Definitions for Cognitive Reserve and Resilience, and various private foundations. Beyond her research and teaching roles, Dr. Marseglia is involved in several national (e.g., Gothenburg University, Center for Alzheimer Research, Umeå University) & international collaborations (e.g., Mayo Clinic, Rush University Medical Center, Health Research Institute La Fe-Spain, European SHARED consortium).

Institutional profile page: Anna Marseglia | Karolinska Institutet

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Roxana Carare - Treasurer

Professor of Clinical Anatomy

Roxana Carare qualified in Medicine in Bucharest in 1994. During her basic clinical training, she became fascinated by anatomy and completed her PhD in neuropathology in 2006, in the University of Southampton, UK. The main international recognition for Roxana Carare has come from the interdisciplinary research she leads, relevant to drug delivery to the brain and to the causes and new treatments for Alzheimer's disease, with over 120 peer reviewed publications in the field.

Roxana is a member of the UK Medical Research Council Dementia Platform UK Vascular Experimental Medicine committee and the UK government advisory committee for the effects of pollution on the brain and has served as the only European member of the American NIH strategy committee for funding in dementia. Roxana has won prestigious awards, including a Dementia Research Leader award from Alzheimer’s Society UK. Roxana has served as Co-Chair for The International Alliance of Women Alzheimer's Researchers in Alzheimer’s Association, Vice-Chair of the Vascular Professional Interest Area of Alzheimer’s Association, co-leads the Scientific Committee for Vas-Cog, Secretary of the British Neuropathological Society, member of the scientific committee of the Rainwater Foundation and serves as an expert for several international research funding boards. Roxana is a Visiting Professor in the University of Medicine, Pharmacy, Science and Technology Targu Mures- Romania where she has co-founded the British-Romanian Academic Institute of Neuroscience.

Atticus Hainsworth - CCCB Representative

Reader in Cerebrovascular Disease

Atticus Hainsworth is Reader in Cerebrovascular Disease at St George’s University of London.

Atticus is an expert in cerebral small vessel disease, which is a major cause of vascular cognitive impairment. He was chief investigator on a phase-II clinical trial (PASTIS) testing the PDE5i drug tadalafil for possible repurposing in vascular dementia. His group has recently published on a large neuropathology study of collagen-IV. He is currently studying microvascular effects of endothelin-1 in a large animal model, iET1 transgenic pigs.

Atticus is a past Chair of the Vascular PIA, within ISTAART, and he currently leads the Vascular Experimental Medicine theme in Dementias Platform UK (DPUK). He serves as Deputy Editor in Chief of the VasCog house journal, CCCB.

Atticus has a LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/atticus-hainsworth-26650039/

Hugues Chabriat - EC member

PROFESSOR OF NEUROLOGY

Hugues Chabriat is a tenured Professor of Neurology at Université Paris Cité and Director of the Translational Neurovascular Center in Paris (France). He also leads the French national referral center for rare vascular disorders of the brain and retina (www.cervco.fr). Formerly Vice-Chair of the French Neurovascular Society (SFNV) and a member of the Board of Directors of the European Stroke Organization (ESO), he has long been engaged in the clinical and neuroimaging study of stroke and has coordinated multiple clinical trials in France. His research focuses primarily on the clinical and imaging features of cerebral small vessel diseases, with recognized expertise in their hereditary forms—particularly CADASIL. In recognition of his contributions to the understanding of CADASIL, he was awarded the Brain Prize in 2019, along with three colleagues. He has served as principal investigator in several international research networks, including the Leducq Transatlantic Network and the ERANET or EJPRD EU programs, and co-led the French national transdisciplinary consortium on cerebral small vessel diseases (RHU TRT_cSVD). Hugues Chabriat has authored over 300 scientific articles and book chapters on stroke and cerebral small vessel disorders. He also serves on the editorial boards of several leading journals in the field of stroke and cerebrovascular diseases.

Frank J. Wolters - EC member

assistant professor of neuro-epidemiology

Frank J. Wolters (MD PhD) is assistant professor of neuro-epidemiology at the departments of Epidemiology and Radiology & Nuclear Medicine at Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Trained at Oxford, Rotterdam, and Harvard, he developed expertise in research methodology, applied notably to the prevention of cerebrovascular disease and dementia in clinical studies as well as large-scale datasets. Dr Wolters leads the nationwide BIRD-NL consortium on dementia prevention in the Netherlands, and is a co-investigator on various national and international initiatives including the Cross-Cohort Collaboration, Dementia Risk Prediction Project, and the Heart-Brain Connection collaborative research group. He is associate editor for the European Journal of Epidemiology and member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Stroke. His work is supported amongst others by a prestigious personal research grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO Veni).

Annemieke ter Telgte - EC member

PhD, postdoctoral researcher

Annemieke ter Telgte is postdoc at VASCage in Innsbruck, Austria. She studies neuroimaging correlates of cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) with a particular focus on assessment of the frequency, causes, and consequences of small acute brain infarcts in different SVD populations, including also cerebral amyloid angiopathy and CADASIL. She conducted her PhD at Radboudumc, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, where she designed the RUN DMC – InTENse study, a serial MRI study on small acute brain infarcts. Furthermore, she was visiting scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston where she studied small acute brain infarcts microscopically. Annemieke is member of STRIVE-2 and joined the VasCog EC in 2024.

Satoshi Saito - EC member

Consultant Neurologist

Satoshi Saito is a Chief Physician and Consultant Neurologist in the Department of Neurology at the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center (NCVC), Japan. His work focuses on translational research in neurology, aiming to elucidate the pathophysiology of cerebral small vessel disease and to develop novel therapeutic approaches for Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy (CAA) and Cerebral Autosomal Dominant Arteriopathy with Subcortical Infarcts and Leukoencephalopathy (CADASIL). After receiving his PhD from Kyoto University in 2017, he completed a postdoctoral research fellowship under Dr. Masafumi Ihara at NCVC. From 2019 to 2021, Dr. Saito investigated the molecular mechanisms of β-amyloid clearance via the intramural periarterial drainage (IPAD) pathway under the supervision of Professors Roxana Carare and Roy Weller at the University of Southampton. Since 2021, he has continued his work at NCVC. For VasCog 2025, Dr. Saito served as a member of the Scientific Committee.

Sarah Pendlebury - EC member

Professor of Medicine and Old Age Neuroscience

Sarah Pendlebury graduated in clinical medicine from the University of Oxford and worked subsequently in London and France. She is Professor of Medicine and Old Age Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, Consultant Physician and Clinical Lead for Dementia. Sarah’s research centres around the impact of cerebrovascular events and acute systemic illness on the ageing brain encompassing delirium, dementia, multimorbidity and frailty. Her work on stroke-associated dementia in the Oxford Vascular Study has informed multiple international guidelines and latterly has explored delirium and infection as potentially modifiable risk factors bringing the possibility of new treatment targets. In parallel, she has established the ORCHARD research portfolio on delirium and cognitive morbidity in the acute hospital encompassing big data cohorts and smaller prospective studies using brain imaging and blood biomarkers. She has successfully developed and implemented cognitive and delirium screening at scale for all older patients presenting as an emergency as part of a 15-year programme. She is now leveraging these real-world Electronic Health Record data for epidemiologic studies on the prevalence and outcomes of delirium, the development of vascular vs Alzheimer’s dementia risk prediction algorithms, and CT-brain imaging analysis for automated extraction of small vessel disease and atrophy.

Audrey low - EC member

Research Fellow 

Audrey is a Race Against Dementia Fellow jointly at the University of Cambridge and the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota USA). She received her PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2022, funded by the Lee Kuan Yew Fitzwilliam PhD Scholarship. Audrey was the recipient of the 2023 'Rising Star Award' from the Alzheimer's Society (UK) and was awarded the NUS Development Grant from the National University of Singapore (NUS), where she holds the position of Young NUS Fellow. Her research interest lies in understanding the role of cerebrovascular dysfunction in dementia using multimodal neuroimaging techniques, fluid biomarkers, and clinical data in humans. In particular, her work focuses on identifying early biomarkers, and factors involved in risk and resilience towards dementia. Most recently, her research looks at the associations and interplay between cerebral small vessel disease, inflammation, and blood brain barrier permeability, and specifically the role of perivascular spaces. A strong advocate for dementia prevention, Audrey also actively organises and participates in public engagement events to improve the public's understanding of dementia and fundraises for dementia research through pottery and half-marathons. Academic profile: https://audreylwn.github.io/

Satoshi Hosoki - Early Career Investigator

Associate Chief of Neurology

Dr. Satoshi Hosoki is Associate Chief of Neurology at Kobe City Medical Center General Hospital. A neurologist specializing in stroke, small vessel disease, and vascular cognitive impairment and dementia, he integrates clinical expertise with biomarker, neuroimaging, and translational research. Mentored by Dr. Masafumi Ihara at the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center and Professor Perminder Sachdev at the University of New South Wales, he conducts research spanning plasma and CSF biomarkers, arterial spin labeling perfusion imaging, and microbial contributions to cerebrovascular injury, including identifying an association between Cnm-positive Streptococcus mutans and cerebral microbleeds—an observation that led to the multicenter RAMESSES study. He is first author of papers in Nature Reviews Neurology, Neurology, and Stroke, and a contributing co-author on major consensus and clinical research publications in JAMA Neurologyand the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC). Dr. Hosoki contributed to the development of the Revised VasCog-2-WSO diagnostic criteria, served on the VasCog 2023 Scientific Committee, and has authored key studies on molecular biomarkers of vascular cognitive impairment and dementia as well as DWI-positive lesions in intracerebral hemorrhage. His research aims to establish robust imaging and molecular biomarkers to advance early diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of vascular cognitive impairment and dementia.

Angelina Kirilova Kancheva - Early Career Investigator

PhD student

Angelina Kirilova Kancheva is currently a final-year PhD student on the Medical Research Council-funded Doctoral Training Program in Precision Medicine, jointly run by the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Her research, primarily based at the University of Glasgow, focuses on describing the clinical phenotype of cerebral small vessel disease using large-scale population-based studies, such as UK Biobank. She also have a strong interest in stroke and dementia biomarkers more broadly. With a background in Clinical Neuroscience (Neuroscience & Cognition Research Master, Utrecht University) and Psychology (Master of Arts, University of Glasgow), she has been fortunate to gain international research experience through internships and visits to Karolinska Institutet, Massachusetts General Hospital, University College London, and KU Leuven.

Beyond her PhD, she holds several leadership and representative roles. At the University of Glasgow’s Lab for Academic Culture, she supports postgraduate researchers and help work towards fostering a more inclusive academic culture. Within SINAPSE, she serves as the ECR representative for the University of Glasgow and as an ambassador following a successful SECRE-funded research visit to Prof. Susanne van Veluw’s lab at Massachusetts General Hospital in 2024. Alongside this, she also works as a Class Representative Trainer with the Student Representative Council (University of Glasgow), helping new student representatives build confidence, understand EDI principles, and engage effectively with staff and students.

Outside of research, she enjoys trail running, adventure travel, and volunteering with environmental and humanitarian causes.