Christopher M. Clark, a neurologist and Associate Professor of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania whose research contributed to the clinical and scientific advances that moved Alzheimers disease from a poorly understood and rarely diagnosed disease to a widely recognized and common cause of late-life dementia, died of sarcoma on 12 January 2012. He was 65 years of age and lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Clark’s career was devoted to establishing the U.S. clinical research and clinical trial network for advancing diagnostics and therapeutics in Alzheimers disease. He was director of the Duke University Memory Disorders Clinic and the Clinical Director of the University's Joseph and Kathleen Bryan Alzheimer’s Research Center. From 1990 to 2007, he served as the Director of the Clinical Core of the National Institute of Aging funded Alzheimers Disease Center at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as the Associate Director of this Center and was among the leaders in establishing the Penn Memory Center, where he served as Director.

After retiring from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007, Dr. Clark worked as the Medical Director for AVID Radiopharmaceuticals. He led the investigator team that demonstrated the ability of a brain imaging method (known as an Aβ amyloid PET scan)  to detect brain deposits of Aβ amyloid, a type of brain pathology  that widely recognized to be one of the two defining pathologies of Alzheimers disease. This research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2011, is regarded as being a landmark  study for advancing clinically applicable Alzheimer’s disease diagnostics. The PET scan ligand Dr. Clark evaluated in this study is currently before the FDA for review and approval.

Dr. Clark was one of the founding participants in the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study, a National Institute of Aging funded clinical trials network that established a national infrastructure for Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials and conducted the first clinical trials in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

He had a particular commitment to developing efficient methods for the early and reliable diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease  that could be readily adopted into routine primary care clinical practice, the evaluation of Alzheimer’s disease treatments, and the relationship between Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer’s disease. He co-developed the Dementia Severity Rating Scale, a self-administered scale that a family member could complete and whose scores assisted in diagnosing dementia and mild cognitive impairment. He was a mentor to many faculty and staff.

Dr. John Trojanowski, Director of Penn’s Alzheimers Disease Center and a collaborator with Dr. Clark over nearly twenty years recalls how “Chris was an inspiration to all of us and a beacon of hope to patients with Alzheimer's and their families. I and my colleagues at Penn, our patients and their families and many in the global Alzheimer community who knew Chris will miss him dearly, but we all are inspired by Chris to continue the effort to create a world without Alzheimer's disease.”

Born in Norfolk, Virginia, he attended college at Penn State, and studied medicine at Thomas Jefferson School of Medicine, and then trained in neurology at Pennsylvania Hospital and Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.

He was a devoted equestrian who enjoyed open country riding and jumping fences in the fields of Ireland and France. His frequent travel for scientific conferences revealed his passion for enjoying a city’s neighborhoods as he typically by-passed the large multi-storied hotels selected by the scientific organizers, and instead, preferred to stay at a bed and breakfast or small hotel located in a residential neighborhood.

He lived in Philadelphia and is survived by his wife Anne, stepsons David Emrich and Matthew Emrich, both of Oregon, and his siblings Anne McLaughlin of Linwood, NJ, and Gerry Clark of Chestnut Hill, PA. A brother, James Clark  pre-deceased him.

Donations in Dr. Clark’s memory may be made to the Penn Memory Center/Institute on Aging, c/o Irene I. Lukoff, Sr. Director of Development for Centers & Institutes, Penn Medicine Development and Alumni Relations, 3535 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA  19104-3309, or you may also make your gift on line by clicking here. 

Please make checks payable to “The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania” For further inquiries, or if you would like to establish a named fund in memory of Dr. Clark, please contact Irene Lukoff at 215-573-0187 or .

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