The Washington Post - April 7, 2022 The FDA approval of Aduhelm ignited a raging debate, with many doctors saying they would not prescribe the drug and several insurers declining to pay for it. Yet even with the uncertainty surrounding the drug, said Elizabeth Head, , at the University of California, Irvine, it is understandable why some families, especially those in which a loved one with Down syndrome faces an all but certain fate, “might believe doing something is better than doing nothing.”

"Much of neuroscience and study of brain diseases has focused on the brain's neurons. This study highlights that in addition to neurons, other brain cells, and especially immune cells, play crucial roles in brain health and disease," said Tallie Z. Baram, distinguished professor in the Departments of Anatomy & Neurobiology, Pediatrics, Neurology, and Physiology & Biophysics at the UCI School of Medicine. "Neuroimmune interactions are a novel, important avenue to understanding and treating several brain disorders and mental illness and have been linked by other UCI researchers to Alzheimer's disease."

First author Gianna Fote was recently interviewed by the Journal of Cell Science for a newly-published paper. She provided commentary on her team's new findings for UCI MIND: "In our recently published work we studied intracellular trafficking of Apolipoprotein E (APOE), a lipid-carrying protein. The APOE4 isoform of this protein is the biggest genetic risk factor for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. We found that that APOE can be degraded by a process called autophagy, a process in which cellular waste is transported to an acidic organelle called the lysosome. The APOE4 isoform accumulates in the lysosome and causes increased induction of…

David Sultzer, MD, Professor, Psychiatry & Human Behavior, School of Medicine eturbonews: The Institute for Molecular Medicine (IMM), a non-profit organization dedicated to basic and translational molecular research to develop safe, effective vaccines against #Alzheimers disease and other #neurodegenerative disorders, today announced that it was awarded a $12 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) division of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)​ to support clinical trials of its beta-#amyloid (Aβ) vaccines based on DNA (AV-1959D) and recombinant protein (AV-1959R) for the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). In collaboration with the @ucirvine (Principal Investigator, David Sultzer, M.D.)…

Managed Healthcare Executive - March 17, 2022 According to the CDC, about 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease …. “These numbers are projected to increase because elderly individuals are the fastest-growing segment in the United States,” says Claudia H. Kawas, M.D., a professor in the Department of Neurology at the University of California, Irvine, School of Medicine. … The things known about dementia risk that are potentially modifiable are all related to general health and maintenance of health, says Kawas, noting the association between control of high blood pressure and cholesterol levels and a lower risk of dementia.