NIA expands Alzheimer’s disease research center network

NIH’s National Institute on Aging announced $14.8 million in funding across 5 years for institutions in North Carolina and Texas that will join a network of research centers for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

The Duke/University of North Carolina Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the South Texas Alzheimer’s Disease Center will conduct research in areas including early and midlife AD and related dementias risk factors, as well as methods of understanding and reducing the burden of these diseases on understudied groups, particularly Mexican American Hispanic patients and Black American patients.

“NIA-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers (ADRC) have been at the heart of progress in Alzheimer’s and related dementias research in the U.S. for more than 3 decades,” Richard J. Hodes, MD, director of the NIA, said in a press release. “Funding these two new research hubs underscores our ongoing commitment to finding effective preventions and treatments for a diverse range of individuals at risk for and living with these diseases.”

The addition of these two centers to the network marks 33 ADRCs across the U.S., plus four exploratory centers, that aim to advance research on effective AD and related dementias preventions, diagnostics and treatments, as well as enhance support for families and other caregivers.

Researchers at the Duke/UNC center will seek to identify age-related changes across the lifespan that affect the development, progression and experience of AD and related dementias, as well as to identify how factors that manifest in early and midlife affect racial, ethnic and geographic dementia disparities.

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley ADRC are positioned to use their geographic location, which covers approximately 5 million underserved Mexican Americans, to create community connections and improve the diversity of data and biosamples available through the national network of ADRCs. Researchers at this center aim to investigate methods of reducing the burden of AD and related dementias among Hispanics and then share these resources broadly.

“[ADRCs] bring together scientists and research participants with a wide range of research focus areas, within each center and across the network,” Nina Silverberg, PhD, director of NIA’s ADRC program, said in the release. “These two new centers will be important contributors as we continue to build momentum toward new research approaches to treatment and prevention as well as caregiving strategies and, importantly, toward inclusion of a diverse group of research volunteers reflective of those most affected by the disease.”