Health System receives $10M grant for Alzheimer's disease research

Updated 10:00 AM July 11, 2005

Health System receives $10M grant for Alzheimer's disease research

By Kara Gavin
UMHS Public Relations

Alzheimer's disease research at U-M is getting a $10 million boost from a major grant to fund broad efforts to find and fight the causes of the disease and other memory conditions.

On June 30 the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, awarded a five-year grant to the Michigan Alzheimer's disease Research Center (MADRC). For the past 16 years, MADRC has been the only federal Alzheimer's disease center in Michigan and it currently is one of only 33 nationwide.

The funding will support a large memory and aging study, advanced brain scanning, laboratory research and efforts to increase study participation by minorities. It also will continue to fund the center's Memory and Aging Project, UM-MAP, which is a long-term study on memory, aging and dementia.

The grant will fund studies that test new treatments and ideas on how to prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease.

The grant also will support a special effort to encourage more participation in studies by African Americans, Hispanics and Asian Americans, so that research results better represent the entire American population.

A major part of that effort is based in Ypsilanti, where U-M researchers have established a clinical research office that reaches out to the African-American and Hispanic population in the area.

U-M researchers currently are seeking participants for studies of new medications. They also are reviewing an experimental Alzheimer's vaccine and memory-protecting agents.

Older people who do not have memory loss or dementia are needed for studies, to act as comparisons and to help researchers understand the aging brain better.

Several scientific research projects will receive funding through the new grant, including advanced brain imaging studies that may lead to better ways of diagnosing Alzheimer's disease and predicting its progression. Laboratory research on a potential way to disable a key Alzheimer's protein also will be bolstered.

"This grant will support five distinct cores, or groups of researchers from around the University, as well as three very exciting projects," says MADRC director Dr. Sid Gilman, the William Herdman Professor of Neurology at the Medical School. "The entire effort integrates with other U-M Alzheimer's disease activities, including comprehensive clinics for patients and our participation in national studies."

About 4.5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease. That number is expected to rise to 10 million in the next 25 years, which creates a critical need for more research on all conditions that impair memory, thinking ability and language.

"As the population gets older, the prevalence and cost of Alzheimer's disease will escalate, too," Gilman says. "The total cost of the disease is estimated at $100 billion now, and that's conservative. Better treatment and prevention is urgently needed."

Tremendous progress in understanding the disease has been made in the past 15 years, Gilman notes, including the general consensus among experts that a protein called beta-amyloid builds up in the brain and helps bring about the death of brain cells that leads to the disease's tragic progressive symptoms.

But Alzheimer's disease still has no cure. Nor is there any surefire treatment to slow patients' long, slow decline, although a handful of approved medications appear to help some patients. Further complicating treatment, patients and their families often don't receive a firm diagnosis of whether dementia is caused by Alzheimer's disease or another disorder that mimics it.

"I see a time in the not-too-distant future when we will be able to treat this disease and decrease the rate at which it progresses," Gilman says. "Perhaps we'll find ways to stop progression, and even treat the disorder before it gets started in people who are at high risk. That's the ultimate aim: to provide a safe treatment in advance of the start of dementia."

Health System receives $10M grant for Alzheimer's disease research

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