Wednesday, August 12, 2026
7:00 - 8:30 AM Breakfast - Coppertop***All talks will be held in the Peak 5 Conference Room***
08:00 - 08:10 AM Presentation of the Franz Simon Poster Award - Jonathan Brestoff, MD, PhD, President, Kern Lipid Conference, Washington University in St. Louis
Session 7: ApoE and Apolipoproteins
08:10 - 08:40 AM “APOE, PLIN2 and Lipid Droplet Dynamics in Alzheimer's Disease” - Lance Johnson, PhD, University of Kentucky
08:40 - 09:10 AM “ApoA1 Interacts with Alpha-Synuclein, Modulating the Development of Parkinson's Disease Pathology” - Alice Chen-Plotkin, MD, University of Pennsylvania
09:10 - 09:40 AM “Apolipoprotein M Mediates Interorgan Crosstalk in Aging and Metabolic Disease” - Ali Javaheri, MD, PhD, Washington University School of Medicine
09:40 - 09:55 AM Short Talk: “Genetic Regulation of Hepatocyte Inter-Organelle Crosstalk through APOE Isoforms in MASLD” - Karthickeyan Chella Krishnan, PhD, University of Cincinnati
09:55 – 10:20 AM Coffee Break
Session 8: Lipid Droplets and Lipophagy
10:20 - 10:50 AM “Lipid Droplets and Lipid Metabolism in Cardiovascular Disease” - Zoltan Arany, MD, PhD, University of Pennsylvania
10:50 - 11:20 AM “APOE4/4 is Linked to Damaging Lipid Droplets in Alzheimer’s Disease Microglia” - Michael Haney, PhD, University of Pennsylvania
11:20 - 11:35 AM Short Talk: “Lysosomal lipolysis is Required for Cardiomyocyte Growth and Lipid Letabolism” - Anahita Ataran, MD, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
11:35 - 11:45 AM Closing Remarks & Closing Kern Lecturer Introduction - Jonathan Brestoff, MD, PhD, President, Kern Lipid Conference, Washington University in St. Louis
11:45 - 12:30 AM Closing Kern Lecture - “The Phase of Fat: Formation, Regulation, and Functions of Lipid Droplets” - Robert Farese, MD, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Updated - July 31, 2026