Today, September 21, is WORLD ALZHEIMER'S DAY! Our faculty and staff are spending this day, as they do every other day: In the laboratory performing cutting edge research with molecules, cells, and animal models to unlock the causes of Alzheimer's disease and identify treatment targets Working with volunteer participants who have donated their time to help us better understand, diagnose, and treat Alzheimer’s disease through research Conducting clinical trials of promising therapies we hope will prevent, reduce, or reverse Alzheimer’s disease We hope today you will consider doing one or all of the following: ADVOCATE: Write to your local, state, or federal representative and communicate the need for increased funding for Alzheimer’s research and improved…
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Frank LaFerla, PhD, Co-Director of UCI MIND, Dean of the UCI School of Biological Sciences Today, UCI announced a transformative gift of $200 million to create the Susan and Henry Samueli College of Health Sciences (press release). The gift is the largest in the history of the university and will launch and will launch a major integrative health initiative that will ultimately benefit all members of the Orange County community and the world. You may be wondering what is integrative medicine? In the simplest terms, it is an approach that focuses healthcare on the whole person and the whole community, using…
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by Mark Mapstone, PhD, Professor of Neurology By now, most Alzheimer’s researchers have seen the writing on the wall. If we are to realize successful treatments or even a cure for Alzheimer’s disease we must turn our attention from the study of patients who have already developed dementia to those who are in the earliest stages of the disease where presumably, the brain pathology is less extensive and possibly more receptive to intervention. This shift to studying preclinical disease will allow us to determine exactly what the earliest brain changes are and hopefully, develop means to treat, reverse, or even…
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Co-director, Dr. Joshua Grill, discusses research based strategies for maintaining brain health with Healthline.com. Click here to read the full article >
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In the recent issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers from Boston University published seminal findings on the prevalence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in American football players. Understandably, the study has generated numerous headlines. CTE is characterized by abnormal accumulation of a protein called tau in specific parts of the brain after repeated head trauma, leading to abnormal behavior, cognitive decline, or both. In the new study, the largest study of its kind, post mortem examination of the brains of 202 football players revealed a high prevalence of CTE among professional players (98.3%) and a much…
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Photo provided by the Alzheimer's Association Dr. Lindsay Hohsfield, postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Kim Green, was awarded first prize in the Basic and Translational Science Poster Competition at the 2017 Alzheimer's Association International Conference in London. Her work demonstrates the critical role of microglia (immune cells of the brain) in Alzheimer's disease pathology. UCI MIND congratulates Dr. Hohsfield on this important accomplishment! Click the video to learn more about Dr. Hohsfield's presentation at AAIC.
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UCI MIND congratulates Dr. Claudia Kawas, recipient of the Alzheimer's Association International Conference Bengt Winblad Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Kawas was honored at the 2017 conference in London for her lifetime commitment and contributions to the field of Alzheimer's disease research. Press release > Photo provided by the Alzheimer's Association
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Co-Director Dr. Joshua Grill and his colleague from the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Jason Karlawish, wrote an article for Forbes regarding the role companies must take to fight Alzheimer's in our country. "More than 5,000,000 Americans are living with Alzheimer’s disease. The cost of their care exceeds $250 billion annually, making this disease more costly than heart disease or cancer. Corporations are incurring costs as well. Adult child caregivers are likely to be working full-time, and therefore they must sacrifice substantial earning potential at precisely the time in life when savings are essential to providing for other dependents, retirement, and…
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The final 2 days of AAIC 2017 were informative and collaborative for UCI MIND researchers. Day 4 included poster presentations by Chelsea Cox and Dr. Ahmad Sajjadi, and Day 5 featured a lecture by Dr. Andrea Tenner on the biology of complement risk genes in Alzheimer's disease. Additionally, Dr. Lindsay Hohsfield was awarded first place in the postdoctoral poster competition held earlier in the week. We congratulate Lindsay on this accomplishment and all our investigators who shared their cutting-edge work at AAIC this year! In the news, Dr. Gil Rabinovici from the UCSF ADRC presented initial results from the IDEAS…
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