Tammie Benzinger

Tammie Benzinger, MD, PhD is the Hugh Monroe Wilson Professor in the Department of Radiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She serves as the Director of the Knight Alzheimer Research Imaging (KARI) Program and is the Imaging Core Leader for the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) and DIAN-Therapeutic Unit. Dr. Benzinger leads the Benzinger Lab, which focuses on developing PET and MRI methods for studying central nervous system diseases.

Dr. Benzinger completed her MD and PhD at the University of Chicago, where her graduate work demonstrated the first evidence for a parallel beta-sheet structure for Ab fibrils. She completed her radiology residency at Washington University, focusing on translational human MRI. Her research spans Alzheimer's disease biomarkers, neuroinflammation imaging, tau pathology, and advanced neuroimaging techniques for both neurodegenerative diseases and brain tumors.

Her lab's work has established critical biomarker trajectories in Alzheimer's disease progression, particularly through the DIAN initiative. The Benzinger Lab has developed numerous imaging techniques including diffusion basis spectrum imaging (DBSI) for detecting neuroinflammation and novel PET approaches for amyloid and tau imaging. They maintain the OASIS-3 database with over 2000 MRI scans from more than 1000 research participants.

Dr. Benzinger has served as Principal Investigator on multiple NIH-funded projects including the Adult Children's Study (ACS) and Healthy Aging and Senile Dementia (HASD) studies. Her work has been published in top journals including PNAS, Nature Neuroscience, Brain, and Lancet Neurology, with several papers accumulating hundreds of citations.

• NIH/NIA P50AG05681 (ADRC Center Grant)
• 1R01AG054567-01A1
• 2R01NS103988-06A1
• 1RF1AG064937-01
• R01AG052550-01A1

Dr. Benzinger collaborates extensively with researchers including Yong Wang, Beau Ances, Matthew Brier, Anne Cross, Brian Gordon, and other leading Alzheimer's disease researchers. She also participates as a site investigator in clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies including Eli Lilly, Biogen, Eisai, Janssen, and Roche, and has served as a consultant to several of these companies.