2003 – 2027
25 years of the MCI Symposium
Since 2003, the Wien Center for Alzheimer's Disease and Memory Disorders at Mount Sinai Medical Center has brought clinicians, researchers, and, since 2013, patients and families together around the earliest stages of cognitive decline.
- 2003 Ranjan Duara and the Wien Center hold the first MCI Symposium in Miami Beach.
- 2012 The 10th Symposium adds a practical second day: the Early Alzheimer's Diagnostic Workshop.
- 2013 The first Alzheimer's Public Educational Forum opens the meeting to patients, families and caregivers. The presentations are recorded on video for the first time.
- 2020 The 18th Symposium, the last held in person in Miami Beach.
- 2021 The meeting moves online: one day of science, one day for the public.
- 2027 The 25th Symposium and the 15th Public Forum.
2004–2012, in their printed brochures
All eighteen meetings from 2003 to 2020 were held in person in Miami Beach. Until 2012 the printed brochure is what survives of each program; from 2013 the presentations were recorded on video, and the archive holds the full program, faculty and talks.
Founder and Program Director
Ranjan Duara, MD
“The MCI Symposium was conceived in 2003 to capture the growing scientific knowledge emerging about mild cognitive impairment: its subtypes, its underlying causes, its long-term outcomes, and its value as a milestone between normal cognition and dementia in observational studies and treatment trials. We humbly propose that these objectives were achieved over the last 25 years, and that they will become increasingly relevant in the years ahead.”
Ranjan Duara, MD, MRCP, FAAN, is Medical Director of the Wien Center for Alzheimer's Disease and Memory Disorders at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach, where he holds the Denis C. Cole Family Chair in Alzheimer's Disease Research. He is Courtesy Professor of Neurology at the University of Florida College of Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Neurology at the Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine, Florida International University.
He received his medical degree from Christian Medical College, Vellore, India, in 1972 and trained in neurology and internal medicine in Mumbai, the United Kingdom, St. Louis and Philadelphia. As a Medical Staff Fellow and Senior Staff Fellow at the Laboratory of Neurosciences of the National Institute on Aging, working with Dr. Stanley Rapoport (1980-1984), he conducted the initial longitudinal studies of normal cognitive aging and Alzheimer's disease with FDG-PET and CT brain scans.
Since 1984 he has been based at Mount Sinai Medical Center, affiliated with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. His research has focused on the transition from normal cognitive aging to the earliest stages of dementing disorders, using cognitive and functional evaluations and MRI and PET biomarkers. He has authored more than 300 peer-reviewed papers, has been site principal investigator of more than 50 clinical trials in Alzheimer's disease, and works today in amyloid PET imaging and anti-amyloid treatment studies as a member of ALZ-NET.
He is one of three Multiple Principal Investigators of the 1Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, was Associate Director and Clinical Core Leader of the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (2005-2010), and is Principal Investigator of the State of Florida Alzheimer's Disease Initiative Brain Bank.
In 2003 he founded the MCI Symposium, which he has chaired every year since, together with its Public Educational Forum.
The host
The Wien Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders
Mount Sinai Medical Center, Miami Beach
The Wien Center is a multidisciplinary program at Mount Sinai Medical Center offering free memory screening, early diagnosis, comprehensive treatment, caregiver support and research for Alzheimer's disease and other memory disorders.
It brings together neurology, psychiatry, geriatrics, diagnostic imaging, counseling, social work and referrals to community resources in a single model of care.
Its work includes:
- Free memory screening for adults 50 and older, as a first step
- Early diagnosis, so that memory, cognitive and behavioral problems can be treated early
- Individualized treatment plans with medical specialists, supervised drug therapy, behavior management and cognitive exercise programs
- Caregiver education and support through workshops, counseling, and connections to home health, day care and respite services
- Research, including clinical trials of new therapies
And since 2003, this meeting.
By the numbers
- 24editions before this one
- 227faculty, 2013–2026
- 295recorded talks and sessions
- 182slide decks shared
Faculty and recordings are counted from 2013, the first year with a full surviving program.
Thank you
Twenty-five meetings are the work of hundreds of speakers, chairs and panelists who gave their time, their data and their best slides, many of them year after year.
A special thank-you to Ronald Petersen, MD, PhD, of Mayo Clinic, who has been part of every MCI Symposium since the first in 2003.
