The UCI MIND Joan and Don Beall Scholar Award supports early career faculty studying Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD). The award provides research support for 5 years with a one-time opportunity to renew funding and is named after the supporters of the program who are staunch advocates for ADRD research.
The award will help facilitate research projects in Dr. Sajjadi’s lab, which is focused on understanding the pathophysiological underpinnings of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. “The award will enable us to pursue projects to identify serological biomarkers for a common but less recognized form of degenerative brain pathology called Limbic predominant age related TDP-43 encephalopathy (LATE). Moreover, it will help generate the preliminary data required for applications that we submit to NIH and other large funding bodies, “ says Dr. Sajjadi. Dr. Sajjadi has been a faculty member of UCI since 2016. He received his medical degree from Tehran University and his PhD in neuroscience from the University of Cambridge. He serves at UCI in both clinical and research capacities. In addition to seeing patients in his memory disorders clinic, he is one of the research physicians at UCI MIND for the ADRC longitudinal cohort and the 90+ Study. He has also served as principal investigator for clinical trials in Alzheimer’s disease and mentors trainees. His NIH funded research emphasizes distinguishing differing causes of cognitive impairment and dementia. “This award is a much-appreciated recognition of the efforts of our lab in developing biomarkers for less common forms of dementia that, at present, cannot be diagnosed during life.”
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