William Koopmans Summers (born April 14, 1944) is an independent neuroscientist and was the inventor of Tacrine (Cognex) as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease {US Patent No.
Summers attended Washington University School of Medicine, graduating in 1971 after an elective year of basic research in nephrology.
[7] Summers served as an Assistant Professor of Internal Medicine and Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and later at the Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center.
During this time Summers did a pilot intravenous,[8] trial of tacrine in Alzheimer's disease and found measurable acute improvement in the memory performance of the subjects.
He soon joined the clinical faculty of UCLA where he began working further on the development of tacrine as a practical treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
Summers was defended by Robert L. Bartley and Daniel Henninger by a series of Wall Street Journal editorials.
With no findings to support allegations and concerns, Frances Oldham Kelsey closed the FDA Office of Compliance investigation, in May, 1989.
[29] Since the 1980s, the majority of research effort was focused on the genetics and toxicity of beta amyloid protein[30] as the cause of Alzheimer's disease.