Sara Garcia Ptacek

I am a group leader, assistant professor and neurology specialist working in research and clinical management of cognitive diseases at Karolinska Institutet and at the Cognitive Clinic, Karolinska University Hospital in Solna. 

I conduct registry research with the Swedish Dementia Registry, and other national and international cohorts, to improve and personalize drug prescriptions in patients with dementia and discover new treatments. Personalizing nutrition to improve cognitive outcomes is another important research line. 

I also study COVID, particularly in regards to geriatric populations and cognitive risks. I collaborate with the European Dementia with Lewy bodies 
(E-DLB) consortium.

2023 Docent in Neurosciences at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden.
2019 Fellow of the European Board of Neurology (FEBN)
2017-2020: Postdoctoral fellowship funded by the Swedish Society of Medical
Research.
2017 Prize for Clinical Thesis from the Spanish National Royal Academy of
Medicine
2015 Excellence prize for PhD thesis from Universidad Complutense de Madrid
*2015 PhD Thesis. "Dementia: preclinical stages and mortality in Swedish
cohorts".* Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. Supervisors: Maria Luz
Cuadrado (Universidad Complutense de Madrid-tutor and thesis director) and
Maria Eriksdotter (Karolinska Institutet-thesis director). Cum Laude and
European Mention.
https://eprints.ucm.es/34377/1/T36508.pdf [1]
[1] https://eprints.ucm.es/34377/1/T36508.pdf

My primary research focus is medication repurposing as a cost-effective strategy to prevent and treat dementia. We use Swedish and international cohorts—particularly the Swedish Dementia Registry (SveDem), which includes more than 100, 000 patients with repeated longitudinal cognitive assessments— to study how commonly prescribed medications influence cognitive trajectories, disease progression, and clinically relevant outcomes in real-world populations. 

A central aim of this research is to move beyond average treatment effects and toward biologically and clinically meaningful patient stratification. I investigate whether medication effects differ by dementia subtype, biomarkers, sex, genetic risk factors, comorbidity profiles, and stage of disease, with the goal of identifying subgroups that may benefit from existing drugs currently prescribed for other indications. Methodologically, the work combines hypothesis-driven epidemiological analyses—targeting medication classes with strong biological plausibility—with complementary data-driven approaches, including machine learning methods, to detect previously unrecognized associations. Candidate signals are validated through triangulation across multiple registers and analytic approaches, and, where relevant, followed up in collaboration with experimental researchers to explore potential mechanisms. Ultimately, this research program aims to accelerate translational discovery by identifying repurposable treatments that can be rapidly tested in pragmatic trials and implemented in clinical care.

I have broad teaching experience across undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate, and continued professional development levels. I have supervisory experience with medical students, residents (ST), and pre-residency doctors (AT), as well as international learners. My teaching spans medicine, physiotherapy, and interdisciplinary clinical education, with a strong emphasis on dementia, neurology, epidemiology, and registry-based research. I am actively involved in specialist training (SK) courses.

My pedagogical practice integrates lectures, team-based learning (TBL), seminars, case-based learning, and extensive clinical and bedside teaching. I emphasize constructive alignment, interactivity, peer learning, and clinical relevance, adapting content to learners’ level and professional context. My teaching is informed by formal pedagogical training in higher education, doctoral supervision, mentoring experience, and TBL methodology.

I have substantial supervision experience at all academic levels. This includes supervision of master’s theses, doctoral-level students as main and co-supervisor, and extensive supervision of postdoctoral researchers.  I currently supervise multiple PhD students and postdoctoral researchers at Karolinska Institutet and KTH, and have also supervised exchange students and early-career researchers from several international institutions.