MarkVCID Consortium Overview


University of Washington Mass General Brigham University of Vermont Johns Hopkins University University of Kentucky Mayo Clinic Florida Mayo Clinic Rochester Rush University Medical Center Washington University St. Louis University of Texas, Southwestern UT Houston University of Texas Health San Antonio University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center University of Southern California University of California Davis University of California San Francisco University of Mississippi

Biomarkers for Vascular Contributions to Cognitive Impairment and Dementia (MarkVCID) is an NIH funded multisite consortium dedicated to validating promising predictive, diagnostic, target engagement and progression biomarkers of the brain small-vessel diseases involved in the vascular contribution to cognitive impairment and dementia (VCID).

NINDS, an External Advisory Committee, and interested non-governmental organizations provide ongoing advice and oversight to MarkVCID research projects.

MarkVCID2 (the second phase of the study) consists of nine performance sites comprised of 15 US medical centers, a Coordinating Center, an External Advisory Committee, and NIH leadership. MGH serves as the Consortium’s Coordinating Center and is comprised of an Administrative Core, Data Core, and Biostatistical and Analytical Subcore providing participating research sites with a common support infrastructure that facilitates cross-site collaborations, oversees development of standardized common study procedures and data-collection methods, and manages consortium-wide data and analyses.

Research sites are charged with performing biological validation of candidate biomarkers that were selected in the first, instrumental validation phase, of MarkVCID. The Consortium’s five-year funding period is dedicated to each project site enrolling ≥200 diverse human subjects in the first 2 years with cognitive complaints and/or early symptomatic stages of cognitive impairment and dementia diagnoses potentially associated with cerebrovascular small vessel disease; then following enrolled subjects longitudinally through annual return visits. Throughout the duration of the study, sites will utilize harmonized data acquisition procedures to support biomarker validation.

Meet the Team

Age-related cognitive impairment and dementia represent one of the greatest risks to public health both in the US and globally. Alzheimer’s disease is the commonest cause of cognitive impairment, but diseases of the brain’s blood vessels—particularly the network of small blood vessels that supply all parts of the brain—have also been shown to be major contributors. Many medical trials have been conducted to find ways to prevent cognitive impairment due to small vessel diseases but have been hampered by the limited availability of “biomarkers” that identify which people should be treated, detect which disease pathways should be targeted, or indicate that a particular treatment is working.

NINDS leadership selected 5 candidate imaging and fluid-based biomarkers to undergo clinical validation in MarkVCID2 to the point of readiness for incorporation into future VCID interventional trials:

  • MRI Arteriosclerosis (ARTS); kit lead: Konstantinos Arfanakis, PhD
  • MRI Cerebrovascular Reactivity (CVR); kit lead: Hanzhang Lu, PhD
  • MRI Peak Skeletonized Mean Diffusivity (PSMD); kit lead: Claudia Satizabal, PhD
  • MRI Free Water (FW); kit leads: Pauline Maillard, PhD & Arvind Caprihan, MD
  • Plasma Neurofilament Light (NfL); kit leads: Sudha Seshadri, MD & Claudia Satizabal, PhD

MarkVCID welcomes collaboration with investigators outside the Consortium. Publicly available resources include:

  • Clinical/cognitive measure collection manuals
  • Biospecimen collection Best Practices
  • Imaging standard operating procedures
  • Patient MRI protocols
  • Imaging- and fluid-based biomarker kit protocols

Click here to navigate to the Consortium's Phase 2 Protocols & Resources.


Study Committees

The MarkVCID Steering Committee serves as the Consortium’s primary decision-making body consisting of the Principal Investigator (PI) from each site, the coordinating center PI, and NINDS scientific officers.

Chair Steven Greenberg (Coordinating Center)
Voting Members UCSF/USC/UCLA: Joel Kramer
UKy: Donna Wilcock
UTH-SA & Houston: Claudia Satizabal
Rush: Konstantinos Arfanakis
JHU: Hanzhang Lu
UNM: Gary Rosenberg
USC: Danny Wang
WUSTL/UTSW: Jin-Moo Lee
Mayo Clinic/UMMC: Ron Petersen
NIH Roderick Corriveau, Linda McGavern, Clinton Wright, Francesca Bosetti, Jim Koenig
Coordinating Center Steven Greenberg, Karl Helmer, Pia Webb, Kristin Schwab, Lisa Wruck, Hillary Mulder

To help accomplish its mission, Steering oversees six subcommittees compromised of experts from research sites and the coordinating center who guide and recommend consortium procedures:

Chair Deborah Blacker (Coordinating Center)
Site Representative UCSF/UCD/UCLA: Joel Kramer
UKy: Fred Schmitt, Greg Jicha
UTH SA & Houston: Sudha Seshadri, Seema Aggarwal
Rush: Shahram Oveisgharan
JHU: Marilyn Albert, Paul Rosenberg, Amir Kashani
UNM: Gary Rosenberg, Jill Prestopnik, Janice Knoefel, Sephira Ryman
USC: Lina D'Orazio
WUSTL/UTSW: Jin-Moo Lee, Andria Ford, Rong Zhang
Mayo Clinic/UMMC: Ron Petersen, Jon Graff-Radford, Gregg Day, Gwen Windham
NIH Rod Corriveau, Linda McGavern
Coordinating Center Deborah Blacker, Steven Greenberg, Kristin Schwab, Karl Helmer, Lida Mazina, Herpreet Singh
Chair Karl Helmer (Coordinating Center)
Site Representative UCSF/USC/UCLA: Pauline Maillard
UKy: Brian Gold, Ahmed Bahrani
UTH-SA & Houston: Claudia Satizabal, Mohamad Habes, Muhammad Haque
Rush: Konstantinos Arfanakis
JHU: Hanzhang Lu, Dengrong Jiang
UNM: Arvind Caprihan, Laura Hillmer, Jeff Thompson
USC: Danny Wang, Amir Kashani
WUSTL/UTSW: Hongyu An
Mayo Clinic/UMMC: Prashanthi Vemuri
NIH Rod Corriveau, Linda McGavern
Coordinating Center Steven Greenberg, Karl Helmer, Bruce Fischl, Herpreet Singh, Carissa Tuozzo
Chair Pia Webb (Coordinating Center), Fanny Elahi (UCSF/UCD/UCLA)
Site Representative UCSF/USC/UCLA: Fanny Elahi
UKy: Tiffany Lee, Donna Wilcock
UTH-SA & Houston: Claudia Satizabal, Nikunj Satani, Tiffany Kautz, Russell Tracy
Rush: Julie Schneider
JHU: Abhay Moghekar
UNM: Gary Rosenberg, Jeff Thompson, Jill Prestopnik, Sasha Hobson, Elizabeth Ott
USC: Jason Hinman
WUSTL/UTSW: Jin-Moo Lee
Mayo Clinic/UMMC: Alicia Algeciras, Prashanthi Vemuri, Ron Petersen
NIH Rod Corriveau, Linda McGavern
Coordinating Center Steven Greenberg, Pia Webb, Karl Helmer, Kristin Schwab, Herpreet Singh, Carissa Tuozzo
Chair Kristin Schwab (Coordinating Center)
Site Representative UCSF/USC/UCLA: Joel Kramer, Jason Hinman, Pauline Maillard
UKy: Greg Jicha, Angela Holloman
UTH-SA & Houston: Claudia Satizabal
Rush: Shahram Oveisgharan
JHU: Sevil Yasar
UNM: Jill Prestopnik, Elizabeth Ott
USC: Xuejuan Jiang
WUSTL/UTSW: Andria Ford
Mayo Clinic: Ron Petersen, Prashanthi Vemuri, Christian Lachner, Tom Mosley
NIH Rod Corriveau, Linda McGavern
Coordinating Center Steven Greenberg, Deborah Blacker, Karl Helmer, Kristin Schwab, Herpreet Singh
Chair Steven M. Greenberg (Coordinating Center)
Site Representative UCSF/USC/UCLA: Jason Hinman
UKy: Erin Abner, Richard Kryscio
UTH-SA & Houston: Josh Bis
Rush: Konstantinos Arfanakis
JHU: Peiying Liu
UNM: John Adair
USC: Danny Wang
WUSTL/UTSW: Munro Cullum
Mayo Clinic/UMMC: Jon Graff-Radford
NIH Rod Corriveau, Linda McGavern
Coordinating Center Karl Helmer, Kristin Schwab, Herpreet Singh
Chair Matt Frosch (Coordinating Center), Julie Schneider (Rush)
Site Representative UCSF/USC/UCLA: Charlie DeCarli
UKy: Donna Wilcock, Peter Nelson
UTH-SA & Houston: Jamie Walker, Mohamad Habes
Rush: Julie Schneider, Shahram Oveisgharan
JHU: Marilyn Albert, Juan Troncoso
UNM: Karen SantaCruz, Laura Hillmer
USC: John Ringman, Amir Kashani
WUSTL/UTSW: Peter Kang
Mayo Clinic/UMMC: Gregory Day
NIH Rod Corriveau, Linda McGavern
Coordinating Center Matt Frosch, Steven Greenberg, Kristin Schwab, Karl Helmer, Herpreet Singh

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