About Dr. Ertekin-Taner

Nilüfer Ertekin-Taner, M.D., Ph.D., is a professor of neurology and professor of neuroscience at Mayo Clinic's campus in Florida. She is a neurogeneticist and board-certified behavioral neurologist. Dr. Ertekin-Taner received her medical degree from Hacettepe University Medical School in Ankara, Turkey and her doctorate degree in molecular neuroscience from Mayo Graduate School. She completed her residency training in the Department of Neurology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and fellowship in behavioral neurology at Mayo Clinic in Florida.

Dr. Ertekin-Taner's laboratory aims to discover and characterize genetic factors underlying the complex genetics of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related neurodegenerative conditions. Her earlier work contributed to the establishment of the endophenotype approach in genetic studies of AD and pioneered the use of amyloid-beta peptide levels as an endophenotype in AD genetic research. Dr. Ertekin-Taner's laboratory currently uses biological traits including cognition and neuropathology and leverages combined genome, transcriptome and epigenetic data to uncover genetic risk factors and disease pathways for neurodegenerative conditions.

Dr. Ertekin-Taner is the principal investigator (PI) of numerous National Institutes of Health (NIH) and foundation grants. She leads multiple collaborative projects aimed at gene and pathway discoveries in AD and other neurodegenerative diseases, as part of the NIH initiatives Accelerating Medicines Partnership — Alzheimer's Disease (AMP-AD), Molecular Mechanisms of the Vascular Etiology of Alzheimer's Disease (M2OVE-AD) and Resilience-Alzheimer's Disease Consortium (Resilience-AD). Dr. Ertekin-Taner is the PI of the Florida Consortium for African-American Alzheimer's Disease Studies (FCA3DS). Dr. Ertekin-Taner has led and continues to lead large, multi-site projects that leverage complex omics data along with phenotypes from post-mortem and ante-mortem series with an overarching goal of uncovering the genetic underpinnings of AD and other neurodegenerative conditions to ultimately identify therapeutic targets and biomarkers. As a physician-scientist, Dr. Ertekin-Taner also continues to manage the treatment of patients with AD and other neurodegenerative diseases.

See Dr. Ertekin-Taner's research faculty bio for information about her professional highlights.