The new grant is a continuation of the National Institute on Aging Late-Onset Alzheimer's Disease (NIA-LOAD) study, led by a Genetics Coordinating Core (GCC) at Columbia University. The study has already overseen the collection of 2600 samples from 519 families, and the new grant will include follow-up and genotyping for these families.
Six of the original Alzheimer's Disease Centers (Columbia University, Indiana University, Mayo Clinic, University of Washington, Washington University and the University of Texas at Southwestern) will form a consortium with the existing GCC at Columbia University, and work with the remaining 12 centers on coordinating follow up with the families that are already participating in the study.
"Many steps in the development of the disease remain unknown, and we may be able to understand the process more fully with the discovery of more genes," says the principal investigator Richard Mayeux, M.D., M.Sc., the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Epidemiology and the director of the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and co-director of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain. "We intend to identify the genes underlying Alzheimer's disease with the hope that that this will help in the development of drugs to treat or possible prevent the disease altogether."
An estimated 4.5 million Americans have Alzheimer's Disease and by the year 2050 it is estimated that between 11 million and 16 million will join their ranks. Currently, one in 10 people over the a
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Contact: Craig LeMoult
cel2113@columbia.edu
212-305-0820
Columbia University Medical Center
30-Sep-2005