During their annual meeting at the 2023 Education Conference, AFTD’s Board of Directors named Chiadi Onyike, MD, as Chair-Elect of the Medical Advisory Council (MAC).

Dr. Onyike will serve as chair-elect while Bradford Dickerson, MD, the current serving chair of the MAC, completes the remaining two years of his term. Following Dr. Dickerson’s term, Dr. Onyike will serve a three-year term as the chair of the MAC.

Dr. Onyike is a neuropsychiatrist, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University, and director of the Johns Hopkins Young-Onset Dementias Program. His work focuses on diagnosing and caring for neurodegenerative diseases like FTD that develop around middle age or earlier. He is researching the epidemiology and treatment of FTD disorders, Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia, and other neurodegenerative disorders.

As MAC Chair, Dr. Onyike will bring a depth of experience advising national and international research agencies, and philanthropic organizations, including the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Medical Research Council in the U.K., and others. Dr. Onyike additionally serves on the scientific advisory boards of the FTD Disorders Registry and the Tau Consortium. He is a founding member of the International Society for Frontotemporal Dementias and a member of its executive committee.

In electing Dr. Onyike, the Board expressed their gratitude for his hard work assisting AFTD across all aspects of its mission, and for his leadership in working to understand the epidemiology and cross-cultural impacts of FTD.