UCI MIND faculty member, Dr. Liz Head, was interviewed for Scientific American Lost Women of Science podcast about Dr. Marthe Gautier, the scientist who discovered the genetic cause of Down syndrome. To listen to the podcast, click here
Read More
This week, I was honored to participate in a meeting convened by colleagues at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute, organizers of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Initiative. The 1.5 day meeting in Pentagon City brought together a large variety of stakeholders, including researchers, advocates, pharmaceutical company scientists, non-profit organizations, and persons living with disease. It also included former US and current European regulatory officials (current US regulatory officials were not permitted to participate due to current federal communication pauses). The meeting was invigorating. Open dialogue ruled the day(s) and the optimism about progress toward discovering disease-delaying therapies was met with clear-eyed recognition of…
Read More
The recently published book “Doctored” has been promoted in a variety of outlets including the New York Times, STAT, and National Public Radio. The book squarely takes aim at Alzheimer’s disease research, collating recent articles in Science magazine and levying troubling accusations at a handful of prominent researchers in the field. The book paints with a broad brush, implicating the entirety of the field’s work and suggesting that these few cases cast doubt on the recently approved anti-amyloid treatments that have now entered the clinic and may hold promise for delaying the onset of cognitive problems due to Alzheimer’s disease.…
Read More
Dr. Leslie Thompson Leslie Thompson, PhD, a world renowned scientist and UCI MIND faculty member who studies Huntington disease, was recently quoted in Science about a new landmark paper in Cell. The paper uncovers a more dynamic picture of HTT, the gene responsible for causing the fatal neurodegenerative disease. To read Dr. Thompson's quotes in Science and learn about the study, click here.
Read More
Happy Lunar New Year. UCI MIND is committed to improving Asian American representation in Alzheimer's disease research and highlighting the important contributions to research being made by our local communities. We wrote about these efforts in our Fall newsletter. Make this year the year you get involved in research. There are several opportunities to enroll in research: CARE Registry, UCI C2C Registry, ARISE Study, ACAD Study.
Read More
Recent research has indicated that Americans face an increased lifetime risk of developing dementia. This finding has served as the topic of conversation from the New York Times to Saturday Night Live. Beneath the main headline, the increased lifetime risk of dementia was particularly pronounced among Black adults, who were in danger of developing dementia at three times the rate of White adults and with dementia arriving earlier. Dementia is life-changing for the person with cognitive impairment but also affects the spouses, adult children, and other supporters of older adults. In the article that sparked much of the recent attention,…
Read More
If you live with or have lost a loved one to Alzheimer’s disease you may find yourself with an inbox filled with well-intentioned emails from family and friends, about the latest research on Alzheimer’s disease or the new cure that drug companies don’t want you to know about. A recent New York Times article hits a bit differently. Linde Jacobs is a woman in her 30s with two young daughters. Four weeks ago, she lost her mother to frontal temporal dementia (FTD) and the article begins with her waiting to hear her genetic test result, that is whether she has…
Read More
Nicotinamide Results from Dr. Joshua Grill's Nicotinamide as an Early Alzheimer's Disease Treatment (NEAT), a phase 2 clinical trial of nicotinamide in early Alzheimer's, were recently published in Neurology and highlighted in PsyPost, an online psychology news outlet. To read the article published in PsyPost, click here.
Read More
