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Alzheimer’s and the Recovery Act
The Impact of HHS Recovery Act FundingA boost in funding for Alzheimers research came when HHS in fiscal years 2009 and 2010 dedicated millions of Recovery Act dollars to Alzheimer’s research. At that time, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded $156.6 million in Recovery Act funds to support 359 grants for Alzheimer’s-related projects, from the most basic research to testing potential treatments. Institutes and centers across NIH participated in these efforts. At the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the Recovery Act “enabled us to expand two major ongoing projects. One is aimed at identifying genetic risk factors and the other is developing new tools, including brain imaging and other biomarkers, to assess disease progression and detect Alzheimer’s at its earliest stages,” said Institute Director Richard J. Hodes, M.D. "Advances in these areas of research are critical to developing interventions to prevent, delay or treat this devastating disorder." Today’s Strategies for Alzheimer’s ResearchNIA/NIH recently released for public comment a draft framework for a strategic National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease, with the intent of developing effective prevention and treatments by 2025. Development of a National Plan was mandated by the National Alzheimer’s Project Act, signed by President Obama on Jan. 4, 2011. The Department has long funded research to fight and treat Alzheimer’s including Recovery Act Funds. HHS is currently providing $450 million for Alzheimer’s research supported by NIH. On Feb. 7, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that the FY 2013 budget will boost funding for Alzheimer’s research by $80 million along with another $50 million dedicated from FY 2012 funding. Highlights of NIH Recovery Act Funding for Alzheimer’s Disease$24 million for the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) from NIA and the NIH Office of the Director to test the use of a new brain-imaging agent in an effort to find sensitive methods to detect the disease in its earlier stages, with the goal of leading to clinical trials of treatments to slow the disease and ultimately prevent Alzheimer’s dementia. The Recovery Act funds are helping the initiative, the largest public-private partnership on brain research underway at NIH, to recruit participants with early mild cognitive impairment to compare to participants from other trials with either late or normal cognition. Read more ... $5.4 million for the Alzheimer’s Disease Genetic Consortium (ADGC), a collaboration of universities and research centers supported by the NIA, to collect and analyze more genetic samples for its research studying genetic risk factors. In a paper published April 3, 2011, in Nature Genetics, researchers confirmed one gene variant and identified several others that may be risk factors for late onset Alzheimer’s based on a study of 56,000 participants. Genome-wide association studies, like the ADGC project, require a large number of samples to be studied in order to detect significant changes. NIA said this project was the largest of its kind for Alzheimer’s research, with data shared by universities and research centers across the country. Read more ... $4.7 million for a study by researchers at Rush University Medical Center on identifying risk factor genes for cognitive decline in older African Americans. The researchers are analyzing the DNA of more than 4,000 elderly African Americans in Chicago and Indianapolis. $1.9 million to Boston University School of Medicine for a vastly improved MRI scanner for multimodal and molecular imaging that can be used by the ADNI and other scientists in the Boston area. Read more ... $1 million to the University of Miami, Florida, for a clinical trial to examine the comparative effectiveness of the impact of exercise, cognitive training and a combination of the two on the physical fitness, immune and inflammatory biomarkers, and cognitive functioning in older adults with mild cognitive impairment. Read more ... $740,000 for researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina to study apathy in Alzheimer’s dementia patients to help develop an effective treatment for this common and debilitating symptom. Read more ... $500,000 for a study at the University of California, Los Angeles, to evaluate the potential impact of a combined dietary and exercise program, with the goal of developing an inexpensive, safe and effective prevention method. Read more ... More about HHS Recovery Act and Alzheimer’s programs can be found at: Additionally, information about the National Alzheimer’s Act and the National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease can be found at http://aspe.hhs.gov/daltcp/napa/. |
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