Thomas Karikari, PhD, Receives Top Honor from Millennium Excellence Foundation

Congratulations to Thomas Karikari, PhD (Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Clinical and Translational Science), who has received the Millennium Excellence Award, presented by the Millennium Excellence Foundation. The Millennium Excellence Awards recognize extraordinary individuals of African heritage and those who have rendered outstanding service to Africa and the global African community across the fields of business, science, the arts, culture, philanthropy, and public service. Prior Millennium Excellence Award recipients include Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former Secretary General of the United Nations, Dr. Kofi Annan.
 

Dr. Karikari is an internationally recognized expert in plasma biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease. His research focuses on improving our understanding of the mechanistic and biochemical basis of neurodegenerative proteinopathies in the human brain and biofluids, and applying this knowledge to the development of diagnostic and therapeutic tools for clinical use. Dr. Karikari has developed multiple methods for using noninvasive blood biomarkers to measure neurodegenerative disease. Earlier this year, Dr. Karikari was named a Rising Star in Aging Research by the journal Nature.
 

As someone whose upbringing and academic training has stretched across three continents—Africa, Europe, and North America—he has firsthand awareness of disparities in state-of-the-art tools for dementia diagnosis and monitoring across countries and in rural vs. urban settings. Dr. Karikari is determined to change such disparities through his research, by innovating simple yet accessible and cost-effective biomarker methods. 
 

Please join us in congratulating Dr. Karikari!