Researchers receive grants to study Alzheimer's disease

5 researchers receive grants to investigate biological, genetic, and environmental causes of AD

Five early-career scientists were awarded The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation/AFAR New Investigator Awards in Alzheimer's Disease. The $75,000 awards provide a broad array of funding in the biological, genetic, and environmental causes of AD. By studying the early changes suggesting Alzheimer's disease from different but complementary angles, the awards seek to accelerate development of diagnostic, preventative interventions, and treatments. The program, now in its third year, has provided more than $1 million to 16 scientists in the U.S. and Israel.

Award recipients include:

Dr. Cohen's research will focus on the possible roles of cyclophilins - a group of proteins that help other proteins fold properly - in preventing Alzheimer's disease (AD) from emerging early in life and will test how this activity is affected by the aging process. His research could answer the question of whether the maintenance of cyclophilin activity through late life could protect against developing AD and will help unearth the mechanisms underlying the onset of some types of familial AD.

Over-production of beta amyloid peptides contribute to the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease.

The objective of this research is to understand the crystal structure of signal peptide peptidase (SPP). This protein is closely related to gamma secretase, the enzyme that participates in the generation of beta amyloids, species that are known to play roles in the development of Alzheimer's disease. Insights into these crystal structures could significantly further the development of structure-based designs for potential therapeutic agents.

Although memory loss is the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease (AD), behavioral changes and executive dysfunction often play a major role in disability. Dr. Marshall will use state of the art imaging techniques to better understand the biological underpinnings of apathy and executive dysfunction in relation to mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and mild AD. This may provide the opportunity to differentiate between patients whose MCI will progress to AD and intervene with disease-modifying agents, attacking the disease at its earliest stages.

The goal of Dr. Oh's research is to modify an amyloid blood test so that it may be able to determine whether someone has early forms of Alzheimer's disease (AD) or predict who may develop the disease among individuals who have certain forms of mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Since many cases of AD are diagnosed at more advanced stages, the diagnostic blood test, which could predict the likelihood of a person developing AD years in advance, could allow clinicians greater opportunity to intervene when drug therapy is likelier to be more effective.

Dr. Pastorino will investigate how the regulation of protein conformation may be crucial in the development of Alzheimer's disease. Specifically, Dr. Pastorino will investigate whether Pin1, a protein that regulates the spatial conformation of other protein substrates, modifies the functional activity of another protein, presenilin 1, key to the generation of amyloid peptides typically seen in patients with AD.