UCI MIND Director, Dr. Joshua Grill was recently interviewed by the OC Register about the Institute’s role in being a reliable source of information about Alzheimer’s disease. Read the full article here
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The celebration was held on Tuesday September 12, 2023, to honor the achievements of Carl W. Cotman, PhD, an esteemed scientist in the field of Alzheimer’s disease research. Slideshow (Download Only) Image Gallery
“Music can really affect the brain in ways that are medicinal” says Dr. Joshua Grill of UCI MIND, in an interview with CNN. Watch the video here.
Consumers can order blood tests from the laboratory testing behemoth Quest Diagnostics to check their iron or vitamin D levels, learn whether they have a sexually transmitted disease, or determine whether their thyroid is functioning properly. And now, for $399, plus a $13 “physician service fee,” they can order a blood test that promises to help assess their risk of Alzheimer disease. In a press release, Quest Diagnostics noted that its AD-Detect Test for Alzheimer Disease is the first blood test available for consumers to purchase that measures a biomarker linked to the most common form of dementia. The test uses liquid…
Treating high blood pressure in older adults reduces their risk of dementia, an analysis of previous research shows, providing more evidence that heart health and brain health are intimately connected. In a new meta-analysis, published Sept. 12 in JAMA Network Open, researchers found that older adults with untreated high blood pressure were 42% more likely to develop dementia during the study period compared to healthy older adults. This was true even among 70- and 80-year-olds. […] “The study suggests that successful treatment of hypertension [high blood pressure] might bring down the risk of developing dementia to the level of individuals with no hypertension,” said Dr. S….
Dear Colleagues, I am thrilled to announce and celebrate four outstanding individuals who have been honored with Lauds & Laurels awards. These individuals have not only excelled in their respective fields but have also demonstrated exceptional dedication and a relentless pursuit of excellence. Dr. Tamera Hatfield, PhD, an alumna of our school, has been awarded the Distinguished Alumni award. Dr. Hatfield’s academic journey at the School of Biological Sciences and the UCI School of Medicine has culminated in her becoming a board-certified, fellowship-trained UCI Health obstetrician. Andrea Wasserman, the Chief Administrative Officer of the UC Irvine Institute for Memory Impairments…
Small trial of Bemdaneprocel, which aims to replace dopamine-producing neurons, raises hope for treatment Scientists have reported early success in a trial of an experimental cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease, raising hope for patients. Bemdaneprocel therapy is at an early stage, and the year-long trial involved just 12 patients, but the positive outcome is viewed as significant after decades of setbacks in the hunt for an effective treatment. Developed by BlueRock therapeutics, a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical company Bayer, it was shown to be safe and the data gave a tantalising suggestion that patients may have benefited. “The data from…
UCI MIND faculty member and professor of pathology, Elizabeth Head, PhD, is quoted in last week’s Alzforum article about Alzheimer’s disease immunotherapies and the high rates of cerebrovascular pathology in people with Down syndrome. To read the story, visit Alzforum from August 25th.
Smoggy air can hurt your health even after the smoke has cleared. But you can lower your risk. Some animal research suggests that fine particles can make their way into the brain, says Masashi Kitazawa, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of California, Irvine. He recently co-wrote a study that found that older mice who were exposed to polluted air were at an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease than those who got purified air. Even the younger mice who were exposed to polluted air had some memory loss and cognitive decline, he says. “As long…
More Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders sought for studies on aging August 2, 2023—With a $16 million grant from the National Institute on Aging, the University of California, San Francisco and the University of California, Irvine will work with community partners to improve the representation of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander adults in research on aging, caregiving, and Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. The new project builds on a previous effort by academic leaders and a large variety of community-based organizations with strong ties to the AANHPI population. The Collaborative Approach for AANHPI Research and Education successfully established…
Quest Diagnostics recently announced the launch of a direct-to-consumer blood test to detect amyloid plaques in the brain. The test examines the ratio of Ab42/Ab40 in the plasma. Based on the Quest website, the test results are provided in numeric fashion, as well as based on categories of low, intermediate, and high risk of amyloid presence in the brain (with lower numbers on the plasma Ab ratio associated with higher likelihood of amyloid being present in the brain). As can be seen on the website, there is a high degree of overlap on test results among those with elevated compared…
Dr. Joshua Grill, a University of California, Irvine, Alzheimer’s researcher, who collaborated with Eisai and other researchers to analyze two trials for Leqembi and two for an earlier anti-amyloid drug, also found that Black, Hispanic and Asian people were more likely to be screened out of clinical trials because the amount of amyloid in their brain was below the trial’s threshold. The researchers intend to submit the findings for publication. “Is it that it’s not Alzheimer’s disease? Is something else causing their cognitive problems across all these studies? Is it that the biomarkers don’t quite work the same in those…
From cutting-edge research on Alzheimer’s disease to an innovative effort to include environmental justice and community engagement in climate and sustainability science research and education, University of California, Irvine scholars, scientists and physicians are blazing new paths to help change the world. And their impact keeps growing. In fiscal 2022-23, which ended June 30, UCI received the most research funding in campus history: $653 million in grants and contracts. Awards from federal and state agencies, leading foundations and forward-thinking companies rose by 12.7 percent over the 2021-22 total of $580 million, reflecting strong support for UCI’s top-ranked faculty, first-rate facilities,…
UCI MIND researchers, Christian Salazar, PhD, MPH, and Maria Corona, PhD, have been awarded a UCI ICTS 2023 Campus-Community Researcher Incubator Award for their project, “Improving Knowledge and Awareness of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias among Promotores in Santa Ana, California.” The team will partner with the OC based, Latino Health Access to train and support community health workers, called promotores, to increase awareness of dementia in Hispanic and Latinx communities.
Results were presented on Monday from the first-of-its kind Anti-Amyloid treatment in Asymptomatic Alzheimer’s (A4) Study. The A4 was a more than 10-year project to conduct one of the first and largest “preclinical” Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials, testing a compound for potential disease-slowing properties before memory problems begin in a population deemed at risk based on an amyloid PET scan biomarker test. Unfortunately, the drug studied, solanezumab, did not slow memory worsening compared to placebo in this trial. This was surprising given the previous findings in which solanezumab had appeared to have very small but seemingly real effects in symptomatic…
Results were presented on Monday for TRAILBLAZER-ALZ-2, a registration trial of the monoclonal antibody donanemab, which was previously announced as positive. The data were highly convincing that donanemab has a significant effect of slowing disease progression in Alzheimer’s disease and almost certainly points to a full clinical approval for the drug by the FDA in the future. The primary analytic group under study in this TRAILBLAZER study (there are several different clinical trials of donanemab sponsored by Eil Lilly under the moniker of “TRAILBLAZER”) was patients with “low-to-medium tau burden,” assessed with a tau PET scan. Unlike the previous trial…
MNT spoke with Dr. Karen D. Lincoln, a professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the University of California, Irvine. She noted that while some evidence suggests that cognitive exercises like crossword puzzles or word games slow cognitive decline in those with mild cognitive impairment, the evidence is inconclusive. … “[I]f you like to play dominoes, spades, or bid whist, you are actually engaging in healthy brain exercises,” she said. “Not necessarily because the games are very challenging and require good memory, but because the game is played with others. Social engagement is good for the brain!” Read…
July 6, 2023—Today, the US Food and Drug Administration granted full approval to the drug lecanemab (brand name Leqembi®), a monoclonal antibody that has been demonstrated to lower levels of amyloid plaques in the brain and slow cognitive and functional decline in people living with Mild Cognitive Impairment and mild dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease. The approval is the first full approval of a new drug for Alzheimer’s disease in nearly 2 decades. The full, or traditional, approval is distinguished from “accelerated” approval, which lecanemab was also granted in January of this year. The full approval communicates that the agency…
On June 9, The US Food and Drug Administration convened members of the updated Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee to review the available data for lecanemab, the monoclonal antibody treatment for early Alzheimer’s disease developed by Eisai and Biogen. The members voted unanimously, 6-0, in favor of approval. Lecanemab was recently granted accelerated approval by FDA, based on demonstration that treatment with the infused medication could lower brain amyloid levels. Based on results from a large Phase 3 trial in which lecanemab demonstrated efficacy in slowing disease progression over 18-months, the agency will now consider full approval for…
UCI MIND Director, Dr. Joshua Grill, named one of this year’s OC50 (50 people shaping the future of healthcare in Orange County) in the Orange County Business Journal. Read the article here. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.]
Masashi Kitazawa, Associate Professor of Environmental and Occupational Health, and his team found exposure to traffic-related air pollution led to memory loss and cognitive decline and triggered neurological pathways associated with the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Read the article here.
May 12, 2023–Brexpiprazole has now been approved by the FDA for the treatment of agitation in Alzheimer’s dementia. Agitated behaviors are common in those with moderate or advanced Alzheimer’s dementia and these symptoms contribute substantially to caregiver burden, institutionalization, and faster cognitive decline. Yesterday’s decision marks the first approval in the United States of a medication for these symptoms. The approval was based on the results of three 12-week treatment studies. The studies collectively showed modest reduction in the frequency of specific agitated behaviors and lower severity on a clinician-rated measure. In one of the studies, 56% of those treated…
May 3, 2023–Eli Lilly and company announced today (https://investor.lilly.com/news-releases/news-release-details/lillys-donanemab-significantly-slowed-cognitive-and-functional) the positive topline results from their Phase 3 clinical trial of donanemab, a monoclonal antibody that rapidly lowers beta amyloid levels in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s disease. The release indicated that patients treated with donanemab experienced significantly slower cognitive and functional decline, compared to those receiving placebo, over 18 months. The primary outcome was a composite measure known as the integrated Alzheimer’s Disease Rating Scale (iADRS, a tool that borrows pieces of other instruments to look at elements key in early disease) and was reported as demonstrating a 35%…
New number crunching from the Alzheimer’s Orange County estimates that the number of folks enduring this sort of heartbreak has essentially doubled since 2014 in the O.C. That’s a startling jump, from 84,000 to 164,000 people, which works out to about 5% of our total population. … “The new number is believable, especially if a difference from the previous estimate is the inclusion of mild cognitive impairment as a category,” said Dr. Joshua D. Grill, Professor of Neurobiology & Behavior and noted Alzheimer’s researcher at UC Irvine . “Orange County is ‘grayer’ than the rest of the country, so we do…
On Monday, April 17th, 2023, the trainee led Research and Education in Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (REMIND) held its 14th annual Emerging Scientists Symposium. The event is designed to help early career scientists share their research and network with colleagues and mentors. Like previous years, this symposium included research talks from invited graduate and postdoctoral trainees, poster presentations, and a keynote presentation. The REMIND co-chairs were honored this year to welcome Rema Raman, PhD, Professor of Neurology at the Keck School of Medicine at USC, to speak on “Advancing Alzheimer’s clinical trials through a convergence of statistics, machine learning and Al”. Microglial replacement,…
Dr. Frank LaFerla, Dean of the School of Biological Sciences and UCI MIND faculty member speaks at local educational event for the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America. Read about the event and the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in California here.
UCI MIND faculty member and professor in the School of Public Health, Karen D. Lincoln, PhD, MSW, MA, FGSA, is featured in Authority Magazine as being one of the top inspirational Black women in medicine. Read the full interview here To learn more about Dr. Lincoln’s research to address health disparities in Black communities, visit her faculty profile or her website: Advocates for African American Elders
OC World produced documentary “Hope Dies Last”, featuring UCI MIND faculty members, Drs. Joshua Grill and Leslie Thompson, wins the Golden Mike Award for best documentary. “Hope Dies Last” creates a narrative around the impact of Alzheimer’s disease on California communities and the stories of families who find hope in the darkest of times. The documentary, produced by OC World, was awarded Best Long Form Programming or Documentary at the 73rd Annual Golden Mike Awards. Read the full article here. View the documentary here.
Message from the Director Dear Friends of UCI MIND, Advances in the field of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) research and the contributions of UCI MIND investigators remain tremendously exciting. Two new drugs have been approved by the FDA (page 3). These approvals are believed by many to represent the dawn of a new age in AD research and treatment. Both drugs received accelerated approval and we await a decision from the FDA about “full approval” for lecanemab. If received, full approval could cause the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to revisit their previous coverage decision about anti-amyloid antibody therapies. These…
The UC Irvine Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders (UCI MIND) is pleased to announce that the inaugural recipient of the “UCI MIND Joan and Don Beall Scholar Award” is S. Ahmad Sajjadi, MD, PhD. Dr. Sajjadi is an Associate Professor of Neurology in the UCI School of Medicine. A clinician scientist with an established track record of studying different neurodegenerative pathologies across the aging spectrum, Dr. Sajjadi has demonstrated himself as an outstanding investigator and an important contributor to Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD) research and clinical care at UCI. He is an investigator in the UCI Alzheimer’s…
The topline results for the Anti-Amyloid treatment in Asymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease (A4) study were released today (https://a4study.org). Unfortunately, the drug being investigated, solanezumab, failed to demonstrate a benefit in slowing memory changes in a population of individuals age 65-to-85 who met criteria for preclinical Alzheimer’s disease. Preclinical Alzheimer’s is a relatively new construct. It includes people who are older and have normal memory performance, but in whom biological tests suggest that the risk for Alzheimer’s disease dementia is high. The A4 study was among the first ever preclinical AD trials, boldly blazing a trail that has now been followed by…
Dr. Joshua Grill and colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh have been awarded a 3.5 million dollar grant by the National Institute on Aging to advance the field’s understanding of real-world patient and family member reactions to biomarker-informed Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (ADRD) diagnoses and to provide critical information for directing post-diagnostic resources to monitor and support those most in need. Read the full news story about this important research here
UCI MIND faculty member and psychiatrist, David Sultzer, MD, has been awarded a $12 million dollar grant by the NIA to test a novel prevention treatment. He, along with two other Southern California researchers will test an experimental vaccine to prevent Alzheimer’s disease. The Orange County Register covered the story. Read the article here.
On February 17, 2023, a bipartisan group of Senators sent the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Javier Baccera, and the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, a letter requesting that CMS reconsider their decision to require Coverage with Evidence Determination (CED) that was levied after the accelerated approval of aducanumab. The letter followed a similar request from the Alzheimer’s Association, made in December 2022. The CED decision significantly limited access to aducanumab and other monoclonal antibodies (should they be approved), requiring that coverage would be granted only if Medicare beneficiaries were enrolled in…
UCI MIND faculty member and Professor of Neurobiology and Behavior, Mathew Blurton-Jones Jones, PhD, has been awarded Early Career Innovator/Emerging Innovation of the Year by UCI Beall Applied Innovation. Read the full article here.
Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a form of dementia that typically affects individuals in their 50s and 60s. It is therefore, commonly referred to as young onset dementia. Clinically, FTD can present in two ways; some patients present with behavioral impairment and are referred to as behavioral variant FTD (bvFTD). The other main presentation involves language decline and is called primary progressive aphasia (PPA). Both conditions start insidiously and accurate diagnosis can be a challenge, especially at early stages of the disease. In bvFTD, patients can present with apathy, lack of empathy, increased appetite, preference for sweet tooth, new onset of…
Irvine, Calif., Jan. 31, 2023 — Sustained support from philanthropists Joan and Don Beall to the the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders will allow for the continuation of an educational outreach program in Orange County high schools and the creation of a new research award for an early career researcher. “We are grateful for the Beall’s leadership, involvement and increased support of $100,000 a year for our educational and research programs,” said Joshua Grill, director of UCI MIND. “Support like theirs is critical to the institute’s mission and demonstrates the trust and commitment of the local community in…
UCI School of Medicine highlighted innovative research performed in the lab of Xiangmin Xu, PhD, UCI MIND faculty member and professor and Chancellor’s Fellow of anatomy and neurobiology in the UCI School of Medicine. Dr. Xu and colleagues have found that sporadic Alzheimer’s disease can be modeled in a non-murine rodent called the Chilean degu. “Our findings, taken together, show spontaneous AD-like correlative phenotypes in cognitive performance and neuropathology in aged, outbred degus. This supports that aged degus are a useful and practical model of natural sporadic AD.” Xiangmin Xu Read the article in the February edition of the UCI School…
In a somewhat surprising move, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has declined to grant accelerated approval to Eli Lilly’s donanemab Read the full press release from Eli Lilly here Like aducanumab and lecanemab, which were previously granted accelerated approval by the FDA, donanemab is a monoclonal antibody treatment against the beta amyloid protein that accumulates in the brain of a person with Alzheimer’s disease. Eli Lilly published very promising results for donanemab in 2021, which included demonstration that donanemab could lower amyloid levels in the brain of people with mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia (the basis for…
The recent FDA approval of lecanemab has generated a lot of buzz in recent days and UCI MIND director, Joshua Grill, PhD has been asked to comment in various highly visible media outlets including the Washington Post and today, in National Geographic.
UCI MIND faculty member and professor, Mathew Blurton-Jones, PhD, is featured in AlzForum for his lab’s recent collaborative work on creating a new strain of resistant microglia. Lead author and graduate student in the Blurton-Jones lab, Jean Paul Chadarevian, along with collaborators at the University of Pennsylvania published their innovative work in Journal of Experimental Medicine in the December 2022 issue. Read the full article here >
January 6, 2023 – Today, as expected, the US Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval to lecanemab, a monoclonal antibody against the beta amyloid protein that accumulates in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s disease. Lecanemab was approved on the basis of the treatment’s demonstrated effect of lowering levels of brain amyloid, as measured by a type of brain scan known as positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. Lecanemab is now approved for the treatment of patients with mild cognitive impairment or mild dementia, and should be used in patients in whom that same amyloid PET brain scan (or measures...
