Our Leadership

• Marwan Sabbagh, MD, director, Banner Sun Health Research Institute
• Cynthia Guinn, COO
• Thomas Beach
• Eric Reiman, Chief Executive Officer, Banner Research
  Executive Director, Banner Alzheimer's Institute
   

Marwan Sabbagh, MD, director, Banner Sun Health Research Institute

Dr. Sabbagh board-certified neurologist and geriatric neurologist, hopes to work himself out of a job. Considered one of the leading experts in Alzheimer's disease and dementia, he serves as director of the Banner Sun Health Research Institute. Dr. Sabbagh has dedicated his entire career to finding a cure for Alzheimer's and other age-related neurodegenerative diseases.

Dr. Sabbagh is a leading investigator for many prominent national Alzheimer's prevention and treatment trials, including Alzheimer immunotherapy studies. He is senior editor for the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and Clinical Neurology News. Dr. Sabbagh is author of, The Alzheimer's Answer, with a forward written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. His new book The Alzheimer's Prevention Cookbook: 100 Recipes to Better Brain Health is due to be released in late 2012. 

Dr. Sabbagh also served as editor for the book Palliative Care for Advanced Alzheimer's and Dementia: Guidelines and Standards for Evidence Based Care and has edited the soon-to-be-released Handbook of Geriatric Neurology.

Dr. Sabbagh is  the director of Clinical Research at BSHRI and Senior Scientist for the Haldeman Laboratory for Molecular Diagnostics and Therapeutics. In addition to his clinical work and private practice in Sun City, Ariz., Dr. Sabbagh is associate director of the Arizona Alzheimer's Disease Core Center, a clinical instructor in the Banner/St. Joseph's Geriatric Fellowship Program and a research professor of neurology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix.

Dr. Sabbagh earned his undergraduate degree from the University of California Berkeley and his medical degree from the University of Arizona in Tucson. He received his residency training in neurology at Baylor College of medicine and a completed his fellowship in geriatric neurology and dementia at the UCSD School of Medicine.

Cynthia Guinn, MA, is the chief operating officer for Banner Research.  In her role, she oversees, coordinates, and facilitates the operation of all scientific, clinical and administrative programs within research. She is responsible for the organization’s efficiency, responsiveness, scientific and clinical productivity, and compliance with applicable standards for the conduct of research.

Guinn joined Banner Research in 2011.  She previously served as executive director of Oregon Research Institute for seventeen years where she oversaw a research program that was funded by more than $20 million per year in competitive research grants and included hundreds of employees.  During her tenure, she assembled an outstanding management team, created highly innovative and technologically advanced business solutions, developed the operational procedures needed to ensure the program’s financial and regulatory accountability, and lead an organization that regularly made the Top 5 Businesses and Nonprofits to Work for in Oregon List, making No 1 in 2011.

Thomas Beach

Thomas Beach is Head and Senior Scientist at the Civin Laboratory for Neuropathology, and, with Dr. Marwan Sabbagh, Co-Director of the Brain and body Donation Program.

Dr. Beach has degrees in Biology (BS), Psychiatry (MSc), Neuroscience (PhD) and Medicine (MD) from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada.

He was trained in anatomic pathology and neuropathology at St. Louis University School of Medicine and at UBC. Prior to moving to Banner Sun Health Research Institute in 1997, he was Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at UBC and staff Neuropathologist at Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Center and British Columbia’s Children’s Hospital.

Dr. Beach has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards from agencies including the National Institutes of Health, Alzheimer’s Association, the Arizona Biomedical Research Commission and the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. He is the Principal Investigator of the National Brain and Tissue Resource for Parkinson's Disease and Related Disorders  funded by the National Institute for Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

He is the Neuropathology Core Leader for Arizona’s National Institute on Aging Alzheimer’s Disease Core Center.  He is Co-Principal Investigator, with Dr. Charles Adler of the Arizona Mayo Clinic, of the Arizona Parkinson’s Disease Consortium

He has served as a grants reviewer for the National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Administration, the Michael J Fox Foundation and the Alzheimer’s Association.

Dr. Beach’s research is focused elucidating early pathologic stages and biomarkers of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease, through studies of normal human brain aging and animal models. He is an author on more than 190 publications listed by the National Library of Medicine.

Dr. Eric Reiman is chief executive officer of Banner Research, executive director of Banner Alzheimer's Institute, clinical director of the Neurogenomics Division at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona, and director of the Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium.

His research interests include brain imaging, genomics and their application to the study of normal and abnormal human behaviors; the early detection, tracking and study of Alzheimer's disease; and the accelerated evaluation of presymptomatic Alzheimer's disease treatments.

Dr. Reiman is internationally recognized for his contributions to the fields of brain imaging, the behavioral neurosciences and the presymptomatic study of Alzheimer's disease. He is the author of more than 200 research publications and serves as principal investigator for research grants from the National Institutes of Health and other leading funders.

Dr. Reiman and his colleagues have developed the international Alzheimer's Prevention Initiative to find effective treatments to prevent Alzheimer's disease as quickly as possible.