Davis C Ryman, MD PhD

After working with Dr Bateman on the DIAN OBS study and associated ADAD research projects during research rotations in his final two years of neurology residency, Davis became the first DIAN-TU Clinical Research Fellow from 2013-14. He learned a great deal about design and execution of clinical trials throughout this experience, which he has continued to apply to research in other rare neurological disorders.

From 2014-17 he worked as Medical Director at AbbVie Pharmaceuticals, where among other projects he partnered with C2N Diagnostics to initiate the first clinical trials of an anti-tau monoclonal antibody for treatment of sporadic AD and progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP). In 2017 he became Executive Medical Director at AveXis, one of the first gene therapy companies to achieve clinical success in developing an AAV9 gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy, the most common genetic cause of infant death. Following acquisition of AveXis by Novartis in 2018, he became Vice President of Clinical Development at Levo Therapeutics, where he is currently working on development of symptomatic and disease-modifying therapies for Prader-Willi syndrome, a currently untreatable orphan disorder linked to loss of function of a paternally imprinted region on chromosome 15.

Selected publications:
Tang M, Ryman D et al (2016) Neurological manifestations of autosomal dominant familial Alzheimer disease: a comparison of the published literature with the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network observational study (DIAN-OBS). Lancet Neurology 2016 Dec;15(13):1317-1325.

Wang F, Ryman D et al (2015) Cerebral amyloidosis associated with cognitive decline in autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease. Neurology 2015 Sep 1;85(9):790-8.

Monserrate A, Ryman D et al (2015) Factors associated with the onset and persistence of post-lumbar puncture headache. JAMA Neurology 2015 Mar 1;72(3):325-32.

Ryman D et al (2014) Factors influencing age of onset in autosomal dominant Alzheimer disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Neurology 2014 Jul 15;83(3):253-60.