Columbia Wins Major Grant To Examine Genetic Link To Alzheimer's Disease

National Institute on Aging Awards $10 Million to Study Families with Alzheimer’s History

NEW YORK, NY, October 21, 2005 – Columbia University Medical Center hopes to double the number of families participating in a landmark study of genetics and Alzheimer’s disease with a new $10 million, 5-year grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA). More than 500 families affected by Alzheimer’s disease currently participate in the study, and bringing the number of participating families to 1,000 will accelerate the efforts to locate the genes involved in late-onset Alzheimer’s, the most common form of the disease, researchers say.

The new grant continues the nationwide Alzheimer’s Disease Genetics Study, led by a Genetics Coordinating Core (GCC) at Columbia University in partnership with the National Cell Repository for Alzheimer’s Disease (NCRAD) at Indiana University. The study has already overseen the collection of 2,600 samples from 519 families, and the new grant will include follow-up and genotyping for these families.

Six Alzheimer’s Disease Centers (Columbia University, Indiana University, Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN), University of Washington, Washington University (St. Louis, MO), and the University of Texas at Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas) will form a consortium with the genetics core at Columbia to coordinate follow-up of families already participating in the study and to reach out to the public in recruiting additional families to take part in the research.

"Many steps in the development of Alzheimer’s disease remain unknown, and the discovery of genes involved in the process will bring us critically important insights,” says project director, Richard Mayeux, M.D., M.Sc., the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Epidemiology at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) 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 at CUMC. “Identifying the genes and then their function should be directly useful in the development of drugs to treat or possibly prevent the disease altogether.”

Study investigators encourage families in which 2 or more siblings have AD or severe memory loss to consider participating in this research effort. To find out more, families can call 1-800-526-2839 or e-mail alzstudy@iupui.edu. The study is also described at the NCRAD website at http://www.ncrad.org.

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 age of 65 have the disease, including nearly half of those over age 85. The cost of Alzheimer’s in the United States alone is estimated to be in excess of $100 billion annually.

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