A new Florida partnership strengthens the fight against Alzheimer’s disease

In a developing partnership, the new Johnny B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer’s Center and Research Institute at the University of South Florida has awarded two University of Florida researchers nearly $200,000 to create early screening tests for Alzheimer’s disease and to explore the association between traumatic brain injury and the disease.

While the Alzheimer’s Institute’s brick-and-mortar structure is under construction on the USF campus, its interim Chief Executive Officer Huntington Potter has begun to foster a statewide cooperative network of researchers who study Alzheimer’s disease.

UF neurologist Kenneth Heilman, M.D., and UF biochemist Kevin Wang, Ph.D., both with the McKnight Brain Institute at UF, were each awarded nearly $100,000 to fund their efforts toward conquering the mentally debilitating disease that affects about 4.5 million Americans, about 430,000 in Florida.

Alzheimer’s disease advances at widely different rates, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, and the duration of the illness may often vary from three to 20 years. The disease first affects the areas of the brain that control memory and thinking skills, then progresses to other parts of the brain over time, eventually causing death.

Because Alzheimer’s can be diagnosed with 90 percent accuracy, Heilman said, he is developing a brief questionnaire to assess memory, naming and gesture recognition to help identify the first onset of symptoms to allow for early treatment. The test will be similar to the blood pressure monitoring indicators currently available in many grocery or drug stores. A user could self-test by answering a few questions on a computerized touch-screen and, depending on the results, may be alerted to contact their doctor, said Heilman, program director of the UF Memory Disorder Clinic.

Wang, a UF associate professor of psychiatry and neuroscience, is studying the effects of trauma to the brain, including possible biochemical changes potentially linked to the subsequent onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Research shows that people who have suffered blows to the head or head injuries in car accidents during childhood or early adulthood have an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease later in life. Wang and his team are using biochemical methods to study this, and the researchers say they are close to identifying a new cellular pathway linking the two brain disorders.

“The funding provided by the Alzheimer’s Institute will be used to confirm this hypothesis, which, in turn, will likely attract federal funding to expand on this exciting research direction,” Wang said. The Alzheimer’s Institute at USF was initially funded with $20 million from the Florida Legislature in 2003 and is slated to receive another $15 million in 2004.

Wayne Goodman, chairman of UF’s department of psychiatry and a board member of the Florida Alzheimer’s Center and Research Institute, said he is pleased the institute decided to award funding to investigators throughout Florida.

“This demonstrates the commitment of the institute to establish itself as the hub for researchers around the state,” Goodman said.