Biography

Timothy Boyd, PhD, MSB, MSM, MBA is a Faculty Senior Research Instructor in the University of Colorado (CU) Alzheimer’s and Cognition Center and the Crnic Institute for Down Syndrome at the University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine. Dr. Boyd received a Master’s degree in Biotechnology and a PhD in Medical Sciences at the University of South Florida (USF), and recently received Master’s degrees in Management and Business Administration at the University of Colorado Denver. With Dr. Potter as his mentor at USF, his dissertation project researched why most people with Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) do not readily develop Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This research identified a growth factor for specific white blood cells, called granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF), which is increased in RA, but which rapidly reversed AD pathology and cognitive impairment in models of AD. Drs. Boyd and Potter then found that the recombinant human version of GM-CSF, commercially known as Leukine®/sargramostim, was also associated with improved cognition in cancer patients who acquired cognitive impairment from their chemotherapy treatments. Combined, these research findings led to a recently completed and successful Phase II trial of sargramostim within mild-to-moderate AD participants (NCT01409915), which found sargramostim to be safe and potentially helpful in an assessment of cognition.

Currently, Drs. Potter and Boyd are working to start a follow-up trial to better assess the long-term safety and efficacy of sargramostim in mild-to-moderate AD participants. Dr. Boyd has also been part of a team that recently found GM-CSF to improve cognition and reverse brain inflammation in a model of Down syndrome (DS), as well as working to initiate a clinical trial to investigate the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of sargramostim in adults with DS. Additionally, Dr. Boyd and Dr. Potter, along with collaborators Dr. Penny Clarke and Dr. Ken Tyler within the CU Department of Neurology, have recently found that GM-CSF can significantly improve survival in a model of West Nile Virus, for which there are no effective treatments for humans. Other research involving Dr. Boyd include investigation of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) as a risk factor for AD and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, and studies investigating blood and cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers from the participants of the sargramostim-AD trials, from a longitudinal study at the CU Alzheimer's and Cognition Center of adults with Down Syndrome, MCI, AD, and normal aging participants, and from participant samples of a Cerebral Palsy Adult Transition Longitudinal Study (NCT02137005) at Children’s Hospital Colorado.    

Recent Publications

Potter H, Woodcock JH, Boyd TD, Coughlan CM, O'Shaughnessy JR, Borges MT, Thaker AA, Raj AB, Adamszuk K, Scott D, Adame V, Anton P, Chial HJ, Gray H, Daniels J, Stocker ME, Sillau SH. Safety and efficacy of sargramostim (GM-CSF) in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's Dement. 2021;7:312158. https://doi.org/10.1002/trc2.12158

Coughlan C, Bruce KD, Burgy O, Boyd TD, Michel CR, Garcia-Perez JE, Adame V, Anton P, Bettcher BM, Chial HJ, Koenigshoff M, Hsieh EWY, Graner M, Potter H. Exosome Isolation by Ultracentrifugation and Precipitation and Techniques for Downstream Analyses. Curr Protoc Cell Biol. 2020 Sep; 88(1):e110. PMID: 32633898.

Potter H, Boyd TD, Clarke P, Pelak VS, Tyler KL. Recruiting the innate immune system with GM-CSF to fight viral diseases, including West Nile Virus encephalitis and COVID-19. F1000Res. 2020; 9:345. PMID: 32704352.

A list of Dr. Boyd's publications can be found on Colorado PROFILES