Alzheimer's disease research will soon experience a boost as the Paul Allen Foundation grants five teams of researchers $7 million to develop new and groundbreaking technologies that can enhance the experts' understanding of the disease, with emphasis on discovering its biological etiologies.
The Allen Distinguished Investigator (ADI) program is looking at opening new avenues in the field of science through providing aid to researches that tackle the early stages of diseases in creative and innovative ways. The target of research proposals is the discovery of insights that can help detect the biological roots of Alzheimer's disease, particularly the study of cell biology. Teams composed of experts from a wide range of scientific and medical areas, encompassing those who have a background about the disease and those who can contribute innovative ideas and perspectives, even from outside of the field of study.
Although treatments for Alzheimer's disease are vastly researched, the rates at which developed treatments fail in clinical studies is 99.6 percent; hence, hindering its availability in the market.
"We cannot hope to fight Alzheimer's until we understand the basic biology that underlies the onset and progression of disease," says Tom Skalak, Ph.D., Executive Director for Science and Technology for the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. The ADI projects will be guided by new and fresh perspectives from experts both inside and outside the field of Alzheimer's disease. With this, it is believed that such cutting-edge efforts will not only bring in new diagnostic and therapeutic modalities, but a possible cure as well, he adds.
The projects under this grant will study the mechanisms played by white matter impairments, pH, gene combinations and brain-wide clearance system in the development of Alzheimer's disease. At the same time, the researchers will also devise new ways and materials to investigate on the basics of the disease and determine new treatment options. According to Dean M. Hartley, Ph.D., Director of Science Initiatives at the Alzheimer's Association, the most effective treatments for diseases such as cancer and heart disease were results of studies that delved into these diseases' basic biology.
The recipients of the grant and the corresponding fund awarded to them include Ragnhildur Thora Karadottir, University of Cambridge ($1.3 million), Jeff Iliff and William Rooney, Oregon Health and Science University ($1.4 million), Fred "Rusty" Gage, Salk Institute ($1.5 million), Aimee Kao, University of California, San Francisco ($1.3 million) and Michael Keiser, Martin Kampmann and David Kokel, University of California, San Francisco ($1.4 million).
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