Dr. Petanceska joined the National Institute on Aging in 2005, as a program director in the Division of Neuroscience. During her tenure at the NIA she has been overseeing and developing a number of research portfolios and programs in basic and translational research for Alzheimer’s disease.  She has been instrumental for the development of NIA’s AD Translational Research program, the Epigenomics of AD portfolio and the Accelerated Medicines Partnership for AD (AMP-AD) – Target Discovery and Preclinical Validation Project.  Since 2012 she has been leading a number of NIA’s strategic planning activities related to achieving the research goal of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s: to prevent and treat AD by 2025.

Dr. Petanceska is a graduate of the University of Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia, where she received a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology and Physiology. She holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology from New York University. Following her postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University and Cornell University in New York, she established her independent research career at the Nathan Kline Institute in Orangeburg, N.Y., and joined the faculty of New York University Medical Center. Her research focused on the role of disrupted sterol metabolism in Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis and on the mechanisms by which estrogens and cholesterol-lowering drugs might exert neuroprotection.