Mark Blaxill

Mark Blaxill is the parent of a daughter diagnosed with autism.  He is also senior partner of a major strategy consulting firm.  Blaxill has a Harvard MBA with distinction and Princeton A.B. summa cum laude and he is the author of several publications on autism, including:

"What's going on? The question of time trends in autism" (Public Health Reports, 2004);

"Reduced mercury levels in first baby haircuts of autistic children" (International Journal of Toxicology, 2003); and

"Thimerosal and autism? a plausible hypothesis that should not be dismissed." (Medical Hypotheses, 2004).

Raymond F. Palmer, Ph.D.

With a background in quantitative psychology, Dr Palmer received a Ph.D. in Preventive Medicine from the University of Southern California in 1996.  He was assistant professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University and is currently associate professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio. 

Dr Palmer is currently funded by the NIA to investigate applications of state-of-the-art statistical methods in the study of age-related cognitive and physical decline.  He is also actively involved in autism research and has published in the area of autism prevalence and environmental toxicity related to developmental health.

Ellen K. Silbergeld, Ph.D

Dr. Ellen Silbergeld works in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Health Policy and Management, and the Department of Epidemiology as a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Graduating from Vassar College in 1967 with a Modern History degree, she also received a PhD in Environmental Engineering at Johns Hopkins in 1972.

From 1996 through 2001 Dr. Silbergeld was the Director of the Program in Human Health and the Environment at University of Maryland School of Medicine.  She went on to become a Professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Health Policy and Management, and Department of Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins in 2002.

Dr. Silbergeld is currently investigating the health risks of exposure to drug resistant bacteria in poultry workers in the Delmarva region.

Dr. Thomas Burbacher

Dr. Burbacher is Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health in the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of Washington (UW).  He is the Director of the Infant Primate Research laboratory, a core facility of the UW Center on Human Development and Disability and the Nation Primate Research Center.

Dr. Burbacher has been involved in research in the area of mercury developmental neurotoxicity for several decades and was a member of the 2000 National Academy of Sciences panel on methylmercury.  He is the lead author of a recently published study comparing the absorption, distribution and metabolism of Thimerosal and methylmercury in infant nonhuman primates.

Anna Choi

Anna Choi received her B.A. in Statistics and M.S. in Medical Statistics from the University of Rochester, and M.S. in Biostatistics and Sc.D. in Environmental Epidemiology from Harvard University.  She is currently a postdoctoral fellow with Philippe Grandjean in the Department of Environmental Health at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Anna's research interests lie in the effects of environmental influences on the health and development of children.  She was involved in the Seychelles Child Health Study in Rochester, which studied prenatal methylmercury exposure and child development.  Her doctoral thesis investigated the associations between polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)

and neurodevelopment of children residing near a Superfund site, a project funded by the National Institute of Environmental Sciences (NIEHS).  Her postdoctoral research focuses on methylmercury neurotoxicity in children in the Faroe Islands.

Wolfgang J. Streit, Ph.D.

Dr. Wolfgang Streit is a Professor at the University of Florida with an interest in brain research and neuropathology.

He received his Ph.D. in 1985 from the Medical University of South Carolina in the field of Pathology/Neuropathology.  After graduation he became a doctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Martinsried, Germany.

From 1993 until the present, Dr. Streit has been an Ad hoc member for various NIH Study Sections.  Between 1999 and 2003, he was a full member of NINDS Initial Review Group Subcommittee A, and has been selected on several editorial boards, including the International Journal of Developmental Neuroscience and the Journal of Neuroinflammation.

He is presently doing research for the McKnight Brain Research Foundation, determining if vitamin E supplementation in a diet results in enhanced microglial mitosis after nerve injury.

Dr. Streit is currently a Professor at the University of Florida, Department of Neuroscience.

Jay S. Charleston

Jay Charleston received his Masters and Ph.D. in developmental biology from the University of Washington.  He has been interested in neurotoxic effects of mercury compounds for the past 15 years following post-doctoral training in environmental toxicology.  

One of his areas of special interest is the application of modern designed-based stereology methods to quantify cell numbers within specific regions of the central nervous system following toxic insult and trauma, and combining these results with other methods of scientific investigation.  Interest in the stereology methods have resulted in multiple collaborations representing a diverse spectrum of biological questions ranging from estimating reproductive reserves in the human ovary to drug discovery efforts using a variety of animal disease models. 

Recently, Jay and his wife Lynne have established StereotomeNW as a consulting service specializing in the use of these design-based stereology methods in support of basic research.

Mady Hornig, MD, MA 

Mady Hornig, MD, MA, directs translational research activities in the Jerome L. and Dawn Greene Infectious Disease Laboratory at the Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia, where she is an associate professor of epidemiology.  A physician-scientist, she is widely recognized for her investigations using animal models and in clinical populations on the “three strikes hypothesis,” examining the interplay of genes (first dimension), environment (second dimension), and timing (third dimension) in the development of complex neuropsychiatric syndromes such as autism spectrum, attention deficit/hyperactivity, obsessive-compulsive, and mood disorders.

Hornig has particular interest in the role of microbial, immune, and toxic stimuli as contributors to these conditions, and in defining the mechanisms that lead to disruption of brain structure and function. 

W. Ian Lipkin, MD

W. Ian Lipkin, MD, is the Greene Professor of Epidemiology, and Professor of Neurology and Pathology in the Mailman School of Public Health and College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Director of the Jerome L. and Dawn Greene Laboratory at Columbia University.  Lipkin is the Principal Investigator of the Northeast Biodefense Center, the Regional Center of Excellence in Emerging Infectious Diseases Research comprising private and public academic and public health institutions in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.  He is the Principal Investigator of the Autism Birth Cohort, a unique international program that investigates the epidemiology and basis of neurodevelopmental disorders through analyses of prospective birth cohort of 100,000 children and their parents.  Lipkin serves on boards of the Australian Biosecurity Cooperative Research Centre for Emerging Infectious Disease, the Institut Pasteur de Shanghai, the Guangzhou Institute for Biomedicine and Health, the Consortium for Conservation Medicine, the Doris Duke Foundation, and 454 Corporation.

Dr. Lipkin’s honors include: Ellison Medical Foundation Senior Scholar in Global Infectious Disease (2001-2005); Fellow of the New York Academy of Science (2004); Centers for Disease Control Distinguished Lecturer (2005), and Bohemian Grove Lakeside Lecturer (2005).

Dr. Boyd Haley

Dr. Haley received his BS in Chemistry/Physics from Franklin College in 1963.  After a tour in the U.S. Army he completed his M.S. in Chemistry at the University of Idaho (1967) and his Ph.D. in Chemistry/Biochemistry at Washington State University (1971).  He was an NIH Postdoctoral Scholar in the Department of Physiology, Yale University Medical School from 1971 to 1974.

In the past 17 years Dr. Haley has emphasized studies on the biochemistry of Alzheimer’s disease.  His research in the biochemical aberrancies in Alzheimer’s disease also lead to his identifying mercury toxicity as a major exacerbating factor, perhaps even a causal factor for this disease.  He was one of the first to propose that the organic-mercury preservative (thimerosal) in infant vaccines was the most likely toxic agent involved in Gulf War Syndrome and autism related disorders. 

Dr. Richard Deth

Dr. Richard Deth is a molecular neuropharmacologist and Professor of Pharmacology and at Northeastern University in Boston.  His research interests are directed toward elucidating the molecular events that cause neuropsychiatric disorders in which impaired attention is a prominent feature.

Dr. Deth’s laboratory has discovered a new signaling pathway involving the D4 subtype of dopamine receptor that is linked to the risk of ADHD, autism, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease.  A key aspect of his work is the role of folate-dependent methylation reactions, including their regulation by dopamine and growth factors and their inhibition by neurodevelopmental toxins. 

Dr. Deth is the author of a recently published book entitled: “Molecular Origins of Human Attention: The Dopamine-Folate Connection”.

Martha R. Herbert, Ph.D., M.D.

Dr. Martha Herbert is a researcher for neuroimaging studies of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders, interested in the complex nature of the neurobehavioral problems of the children she treats.

Dr. Herbert received her Ph.D. in 1981 from the University of California Santa Cruz in studies of the History of Consciousness, and her M.D. in 1991 from College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City.

Additionally, she is the Director of the Brain Development Initiative and the Cure Autism Now Foundation, and among her many achievements, has received the Cure Autism Now Innovator Award.

Dr. Herbert is currently an Assistant Professor, Neurology at Harvard Medical School.

Diana Vargas, M.D.

Dr. Diana Vargas is a Neurology Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital, School of Medicine.  She is an active member of Johns Hopkins Medical and Surgical Association as well as the Post-Doctoral Association.

In 2001, Dr. Vargas completed a clinical clerkship in Psychiatry at the Hospital Saint-Pau, Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain as well as a medical internship at the Hospital Pedro Leon Alvarez, La Mesa, Cundinamarca, Colombia.

Dr. Vargas graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Colombia in 2002 with a Medical Degree, additionally completing her research internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital, School of Medicine in the same year. 

In 2005, Dr. Vargas received the Fellow Travel Grant Award at the 12th Conference Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) meeting in Boston, MA.

Dr. Jill James

Dr. Jill James is an internationally recognized nutritional biochemist with over 20 years research experience in abnormal folate metabolism and disease susceptibility.  She received her B.S. degree Phi Beta Kappa from Mills College, and her Ph.D. degree in Nutritional Biochemistry from UCLA.  Her research career has been devoted to defining gene-nutrient interactions that increase susceptibility to birth defects, cancer, Down syndrome, and most recently, autism. 

Dr. James is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences and Director of the Biochemical Genetics Laboratory at the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers and recently received the prestigious American Society for Nutritional Sciences award for innovative research contributing to the understanding of human nutrition.

Jeff Bradstreet, MD, FAAFP

Dr. Bradstreet received his medical degree from the University of South Florida, and his residency training at Wilford Hall US Air Force Medical Center, Brook Army Hospital, and the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.

He is an Adjunct Professor of Child Development and Nutritional Neuroscience at Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Phoenix, Arizona. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Neurosciences at Stetson University.  His published works in autism spectrum disorders garnered him national attention, and has been presented to numerous international symposiums, including: the US Congress, the National Academies of Science and the Institute of Medicine.

Elizabeth Mumper, MD

Dr. Mumper is a general pediatrician with a love for medical education.  Currently she is CEO of Advocates for Children where she cares for 1800 patients, about half of whom have neurodevelopmental disabilities 

She graduated from the Medical College of Virginia in 1980 and completed her internship in pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts. 

Dr. Mumper was Director of Pediatric Education at a University of Virginia affiliated family practice residency program for 11 years, and 10 years of practice experience.

Dr. Mumper is the National Co-Chair for Defeat Autism Now!, associated with the Autism Research Institute.  She is Director of Medical Education for the DAN! Physician Training Program.