Katerina Akassoglou is a Professor of Neurology at the University of California San Francisco and Senior Investigator at the Gladstone Institutes. She trained for her PhD at the Hellenic Pasteur Institute in Greece and the University of Vienna in Austria and performed postdoctoral studies at the Rockefeller University and New York University. She has pioneered studies in neuroimmunology and discovered neurovascular mechanisms of inflammation and tissue repair. She developed a first-in-class fibrin-targeting immunotherapy for the treatment of neurological diseases, currently in Phase 1 clinical trials. She has published over 100 papers, is an inventor on 11 issued and several pending patents, and has delivered over 250 invited lectures. She was awarded by the White House the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and her work has been recognized by several awards including the Barancik Prize for Innovation in MS Research and the Pharmacia-ASPET Award for Experimental Therapeutics. She is the scientific founder of the university spin-out Therini Bio and she was named by the San Francisco Business Times among the 2021 Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business. She is an elected Fellow of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics (ASPET) and the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).