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…

Can reading and similar activities help stave off dementia? Image credit: Simone Wave/Stocksy? 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. … “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…

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.

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. "Public and environmental regulatory agencies need to accelerate efforts to reduce particulate matter levels in order to reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease and other serious health conditions," says Michael Kleinman. (Credit: Getty Images) Read the article here.

David Sultzer, MD 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%…