Frank Jessen received his MD degree from the University of Saarland in 1995. After residencies in neuropathology at the University of Düsseldorf, and neurology and psychiatry at the University of Bonn, he was board certified as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist in 2002. He served from 2002-2010 as a consultant psychiatrist and head of clinical Alzheimer’s disease research at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn. In 2010, he was appointed Professor of Clinical Dementia Research and deputy director of the Department of Psychiatry, University of Bonn. In 2015, he was appointed as a Professor of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy and director of the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cologne. Since 2010, he is an associate researcher at the German Center of Neurogenerative Diseases (DZNE).
Frank Jessen’s research focusses on prevention, early diagnosis and treatment development in Alzheimer’s disease with expertise in neuropsychology, neuroimaging, epidemiology and genetics. He coordinated national and international multicenter observational studies and clinical trials. He is author of over 550 publication and of over 20 books and book chapters on Alzheimer’s disease.
He is a member of the DZNE clinical board, chairman of the European Alzheimer’s Disease Consortium (EADC) and member the NIA-AA working group on Alzheimer’ s disease criteria. He is the past chairman of the ISTARRT professional interest area on subjective cognitive decline (SCD) and the SCD-initiative (SCD-I). He is the main author of the German national guideline on the diagnosis and treatment of dementia.