Chi Udeh-Momoh, PhD, FHEA, is a Translational Neuroscientist with expertise in dementia prediction, and prevention, based at Wake Forest University School of Medicine (WFUSM), and affiliated as a Senior Lecturer at Aga Khan University Kenya, the Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience, UK, and Karolinska Institute Sweden. At WFUSM, she leads the Udeh-Momoh Lab for Global Brain Health Equity (U-M = BRAIN), focusing on translational research to advance equitable and culturally informed strategies for promoting successful aging, by investigating the intersectional relationships of biological, psycho-sociological, and economic factors that contribute to health disparities in brain health and dementia across the life course. In her dual roles as co-Director of the Imarisha Centre for Brain Health and Aging and Lead of the Genomics and Biomarker Core at the Brain and Mind Institute Kenya, she is developing capacity for dementia and brain aging research, education, and care while collaborating with Mental Health and Neuroscience subject experts, clinicians, and educators at the Aga Khan University, to ultimately build the neuroscience capacity and strength across Global South regional partner institutions, including Pakistan. She is also a Senior Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health. In 2018, she initiated the multinational AFRICA-FINGERS project (as Chief Investigator) across 10 African countries, including Kenya and Nigeria, which aims to promote healthy aging and mitigate brain health and biomarker-access inequalities through culturally appropriate, sustainable multimodal intervention strategies in African populations.
She co-Leads the World-Wide FINGERS Biomarker Consortium, as well as the Global CEOi/Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative workstream on Implementation of Blood-based-biomarkers in Clinical Practice, and is an Executive committee member of the Biofluids-biomarker-based PIA of the Alzheimer’s Association ISTAART (2018 - present), where she is Founding Chair and co-Lead of the Saliva Biomarkers for Dementia Research workgroup (2018 - present). Key outputs include a white paper describing critical pre-analytical considerations for the analysis of ADRD biomarkers in saliva samples (under review A&D journal). She is also co- founder of the Female Brain and Endocrine Research (FEMBER) consortium, and currently sits on the NIH-funded National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine committee to determine research priorities to address the global burden of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia (2023-2024), as well as the WHO Guideline Development Group to provide recommendations for global strategies for risk reduction of cognitive impairment and dementia.
Having completed a competitive CASE PhD studentship in Neuroscience and Neuroendocrinology at the MRC Centre for Synaptic Plasticity at the University of Bristol (2010-2014), Dr. Udeh-Momoh conducts research to elucidate dementia prevention bio-mechanistic pathways and strategies across diverse populations toward equitable ADRD biomarker-driven detection and prediction practices, adopting a translational approach integrating human clinical studies with experimental animal models. Specifically, her research leverages precision health advances to identify and address biopsychosocial determinants of ADRD risk in the context of sex, gender, and ethno-racial disparities, and toward development of contextual preventive strategies. She previously conducted research at Imperial College London, where components of her work received funding from Gates Ventures and industry partners Janssen, Merck, and Takeda. She currently receives competitively awarded funding of up to $6M for her research efforts from the Alzheimer’s Association, the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative, UKRI Medical Research Council, the UK Defense and Security Accelerator fund, Wellcome Trust, and the Global Brain Health Institute. Dr. Udeh-Momoh additionally leads several multinational initiatives to address gender and racial disparities in medical research and academia and sits on the Board of Trustees of the British Society for Neuroendocrinology as the Grants committee Deputy Chair and Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Lead.
Overall, her work is at the forefront of translational neuroscience, bringing together fundamental discoveries in neuroscience with the goal of improving human health and well-being.
