Randall J. Bateman, MD, is the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Distinguished Professor of Neurology at Washington University School of Medicine, director of the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) and director of the DIAN Trials Unit (DIAN-TU).
Bateman’s laboratory investigates the causes and methods of diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) utilizing a wide variety of assays and techniques from basic applications, such as quantitative measurement of stable-isotope labeled peptides, to clinical translational studies of diagnostic and therapeutic biomarkers for AD. Bateman trains junior faculty, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and undergraduates in his lab and has been the primary mentor for more than twenty junior faculty, clinical fellows, post-doctoral researchers, graduate and medical students who have been successful in their desired medical and scientific careers.
Bateman’s lab accomplishments include pioneering the central nervous system Stable Isotope Labeling Kinetics (SILK) measurements in humans, furthering insights of human circadian patterns of amyloid-beta, soluble APP and tau, and in vivo control of the alpha-secretase, beta-secretase and gamma-secretase processing of amyloid-beta. His lab developed a method to measure amyloid-beta (Aβ) production and clearance in the human CNS, which was successfully utilized to determine decreased clearance of Aβ in Alzheimer’s disease and quantify the pharmacodynamic action of a gamma-secretase inhibitor in a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) compliant trial. His lab has developed methods to quantify the pharmacodynamic action of drugs targeting amyloid-beta, amyloid precursor protein and Apolipoprotein E. His lab recently reported on a highly accurate blood test for Alzheimer’s disease amyloid plaques which can detect AD pathology decades before symptoms of the disease develop. His lab also discovered that tau production is increased in AD and potentially altered in non-AD tauopathies. The Bateman lab has focused research projects on tau isoform species in brain, CSF and blood, and also neurofilament biomarkers.
The Bateman lab collaborates internationally with other labs in neurodegenerative diseases, pathophysiology of neurological diseases and in studies of neuroscience and normal nervous system function.
Bateman’s research in DIAN has provided evidence for a cascade of events beginning decades before symptom onset that leads to Alzheimer’s disease dementia, supporting development of Alzheimer’s disease prevention trials. This focus on deep scientific involvement in Alzheimer’s disease has led to seminal scientific discoveries, breakthroughs in cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) and blood diagnostic testing and groundbreaking translational studies and therapeutic trials.
Bateman launched the DIAN-TU Pharma Consortium in 2011 with ten major pharmaceutical companies joining to support and collaborate in the development of trials for autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease. Bateman directs the DIAN-TU, which launched the DIAN-TU prevention trials in families with dominantly inherited Alzheimer’s disease in 2012. The DIAN-TU trial is an advanced world-wide adaptive trial platform that tests therapeutics targeting the pathophysiology of Alzheimer’s disease with the goal to slow, stop or reverse Alzheimer’s disease. The DIAN-TU has launched three Phase 2/3 drug arms with a range of amyloid-beta targets and is now preparing for tau-directed drugs.
In 2010, Bateman organized the Autosomal Dominant Alzheimer’s Disease Forum, a patient and family advocacy group, and then launched world-wide meetings for family members (DIAN family conferences) which have grown into annual meetings with more than 200 family members attending from most continents. The DIAN Expanded Registry is the portal for families with dominantly inherited Alzheimer’s disease to become connected to the DIAN studies and other families around the world.
Bateman treats patients with dementia at the Memory Diagnostic Center of Washington University. He is also an investigator for the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and for the Hope Center for Neurological Disorders. He has advised or consulted for the FDA, National Institutes of Health (NIH), biotech and pharmaceutical companies. He holds multiple patents through Washington University and in 2008, co-founded C2N Diagnostics, a biotechnology company located at the Center for Emerging Technology in St. Louis that is active today in therapeutic and diagnostic developments in neurodegenerative diseases.
Bateman’s honors include the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) Foundation Corporate Roundtable Clinical Research Fellowship, World Technology Award Nominee for Health and Medicine Associate, Scientific American 50 Award recognizing the top 50 scientific achievements, the Alzheimer’s Research Forum Community Award, the Beeson Award for Aging Research, the St. Louis Academy of Science Innovator of the Year award, the Alzheimer’s Association Zenith Fellows Award, the Alzheimer’s Research Forum Open Innovation Award, the MetLife Promising Investigator Award, Scientific American top innovator, Chancellor’s Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Glenn Award for Aging Research, the MetLife Foundation Award for Medical Research and in 2019 the Potamkin Prize, referred to as the Nobel Prize of Alzheimer’s research which is given each year to leading researchers by the AAN.
His membership in honorary societies includes the American Neurological Association and the American Society for Clinical Investigation Council. Bateman’s professional memberships include the American Academy of Neurology and the Society for Neuroscience. He serves as an editor and reviewer for many prominent scientific journals and is a sought-after lecturer nationally and internationally.