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NIA award will advance Alzheimer’s disease, dementia research at Penn

The National Institute on Aging recently awarded approximately $8.8 million over 5 years to the University of Pennsylvania’s Alzheimer’s Disease Core Center to continue studying mechanisms, diagnostics and treatment strategies for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias.

“We are pleased to renew our support for the Penn [Alzheimer’s Disease Core Center] so that it may continue contributing to our national effort to end the devastation wrought by Alzheimer's and related dementias,” Nina Silverberg, PhD, a program director at the Alzheimer's Disease Centers, National Institute on Aging, said in a press release. “We are hopeful our support for the Penn [Alzheimer’s Disease Core Center] research program will lead to novel findings on the basic mechanisms involved in these diseases, and innovative new programs aimed at improving the lives of those living with dementia and their caregivers."

John Q. Trojanowski

The renewal funding will support the center’s efforts to recruit and evaluate individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, with an emphasis on the black population. It will also allow the center to advance bioinformatics infrastructure to better utilize data and expand banks for central nervous system tissues, DNA and biofluids for diagnostic studies.

“The creation of [Alzheimer’s Disease Core Centers] marked the beginning of the recognition of [Alzheimer’s disease] and related disorders by the NIH. Through the [Alzheimer’s Disease Core Centers], the NIH has served as a champion for the development of potential treatments as the incidence of [Alzheimer’s disease] and related dementias are on the rise,” John Q. Trojanowski, MD, PhD, founding director of the of the Alzheimer’s Disease Core Center at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, said in the release. “The continued support of the [National Institute on Aging] allows us to keep our foot on the gas in the hopes that scientific discovery will lead to clinical trials and treatments for this devastating set of diseases.”