IPA Member Achievements and Honors

IPA as an organization builds on the strengths, expertise, energy and accomplishments of its members. We are very pleased to develop an IPA Bulletin and IPA Online feature that brings these activities to broader attention. 

Congratulations to each for their accomplishments and honors. Please send yours, or those of your colleagues, to IPA at ipa@ipa-online.org.

Braak honored with award for Alzheimer's disease research.

Heiko Braak ( Germany )

Heiko Braak, MD, was recognized with the Alois Alzheimer Award by the Hans-Juergen Moeller, MD, Chairman of the award committee, Department of Psychiatry, Ludwig Maximilian University , Munich , for extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement within the field of Alzheimer research. Dr. Braak is emeritus professor and retired director of the anatomical institute of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt. The 20 000 US Dollar award is sponsored by the pharmaceutical company Merz (Frankfurt, Germany) and given by an international committee to scientists with outstanding contributions to the research on Alzheimer's disease. Previous recipients of this prestigious award created in 1995 include among other Dr. Allen Roses, Durham , USA , Bengt Winblad, Huddinge , Sweden , Christian Haas, Munich , Germany , and Kaj Blennow, Göteborg , Sweden . The award ceremony took place at the 100^th anniversary of the Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of the University of Munich .  

Dr. Braak established an internationally recognized staging system of cerebral neurofibrillary changes, a core neuropathology of AD. Together with his wife, Dr. Eva Braak (1939-2000), he was able to develop a new staining method that allows for the sensitive detection of neurofibrillary changes in post-mortem brains of AD patients. Dr. Braak could demonstrate that the development of neurofibrillary changes shows a spatiotemporal order that is paralleled by aggravation of cognitive decline in AD patients. The Braak & Braak staging system has recently been adopted for the definition of diagnostic criteria of AD.

Recent epidemiological studies show that the incidence of AD rises from about 2% in persons aged 60 to 69 years to at least 30% above the age of 85. The societal burden of the disease is expected to increase dramatically. Whereas the prevalence of dementia was about 7.1 milllion in the year 2000 in Europe , this number is expected to rise to 61.2 million until the year 2050. 

Dr. Braak has contributed a milestone in the characterization of Alzheimer's disease and accelerated the understanding of the progression of neurodegeneration in AD. Dr. Braak's scientific work is esteemed by a world-wide research community in the field of Alzheimer's disease. The Braak & Braak staging system has been adopted in hundreds of scientific publications. Dr. Braak continues his research, focusing on the development of a staging system of the development of Lewy bodies in ideopathic Parkinson's disease.