Laurie Sanders, PhD

Dr. Sanders is an Associate professor within the Department of Neurology with a secondary appointment in Pathology at Duke University Medical Center. She is also a faculty member of the Duke Center for Neurodegeneration and Neurotherapeutics, Divisions of Movement Disorders and Translational Brain Sciences. Dr. Sanders received her BS from Cornell University and PhD degree in biochemistry from the University at Buffalo. She completed her postdoctoral training in the Pittsburgh Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Pittsburgh, during which she was recognized with The First Parkinson’s Action Network Postdoctoral Advocacy Prize. Dr. Sanders also completed a Masters Certificate in Clinical Research through The Institute for Clinical Research Education from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.  In 2015 she was granted the William N. & Bernice E. Bumpus Foundation Innovation award for high risk/high reward ideas that could advance our understanding of Parkinson’s disease. She is the recipient of the 2020 Environmental Mutagenesis and Genomics Society Young Scientist Award. Dr. Sanders leads a translational neuroscience laboratory focused on age-related neurodegenerative diseases. She is also the owner of several awarded or pending patents in the development of biomarkers and neurotherapeutics. Dr. Sanders, as the Faculty Lead, co-directs the Interventional Clinical Trials in Neurodegenerative Diseases at the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI). In this capacity, she has led as principal investigator multiple clinical trials focused on neurodegenerative diseases at the DCRI and has extensive experience in biorepository and innovative biomarker data collection and integration strategies.