Grant to UCSD to Aid Research in Alzheimer’s
The National Institute on Aging has awarded UC San Diego $18 million to create a national consortium to test drugs for Alzheimer’s patients, an action that experts say should speed promising drugs to the marketplace and, for the first time, open drug trials to patients who don’t speak English.
UCSD School of Medicine experts will divvy up the five-year grant among 30 centers across the country--including three others in California--in an effort to test drugs more quickly and efficiently.
Details about the consortium, called the Alzheimer’s Study Unit, will be announced today at a press conference.
“This cooperative effort is a key part of the NIA’s program to accelerate the development of compounds to fight Alzheimer’s disease,” said Gene Cohen, NIA’s acting director, in a prepared statement. “Our objective is to delay the onset of the disease by five years by the end of the decade. If we can achieve this goal, we will reduce the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease by 50%.”
The NIA grant, among the largest UCSD has ever received, pushes UCSD to the forefront in Alzheimer’s research in the United States. In 1989, for example, UCSD received a $9-million NIA grant for researching the causes of the disease, as well as its treatment.
Alzheimer’s disease is the fourth-leading cause of death among American adults.
In California, there are half a million Alzheimer’s sufferers; of those, 34,000 live in San Diego County. The victims of this disease suffer gradual destruction of the brain cells, a process that causes intellectual deterioration beginning with memory loss and ending with dementia and loss of all body functions.
“Over the last decade, basic scientists have made great advances in understanding how Alzheimer’s disease affects the brains of its victims. We are ready now to move into the practical application of their work--testing compounds that may help slow or stop the progression of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Leon Thal, professor of neurosciences at UCSD and chief of neurology at the San Diego VA Medical Center.
“Our consortium will provide a ready mechanism to test agents as they are developed. We will not have to go through the lengthy process of applying for grants and setting up centers to reach large groups of patients.”
Thal will oversee the clinical trials and the analysis of data gathered from the 30 centers, which include UCLA, UC Irvine and University of Southern California. The consortium will be able to run three drug trials at a time, enrolling about 400 patients.
Thal said the consortium will study compounds that are not deemed cost-effective for pharmaceutical companies to test. But the exact drugs to be studied have not yet been decided, he said.
“We hope to complement, not overlap, what the pharmaceutical companies do so that as many effective therapies to combat Alzheimer’s disease as possible can be brought to patients who need them,” Thal said in a prepared statement.
The federal grant to UCSD was made possible by a special congressional appropriation in 1990. In that year, Congress increased Alzheimer’s research funds from $148 million to $229 million for 1991, a 40% increase.
“Alzheimer’s disease is not only life-threatening, but also life-destroying. The cruelness of the disease demands an aggressive search for answers,” said Bill Smith, president of San Diego’s chapter of the Alzheimer’s Assn., a national health organization for Alzheimer’s patients and their families. “We are absolutely thrilled and feel very fortunate to have this major research endeavor here in San Diego.”
Researchers are now trying to unlock the mystery of what causes the brain cell destruction that is Alzheimer’s. With that in mind, the consortium plans to focus on the following three research areas:
* Examining whether some drugs can strengthen the brain cell wall, or membrane, so that healthy cells become more resilient against the disease’s onslaught.
* Determining whether chemical compounds can be used to repair or revive brain cell synapses, or the channels by which brain cells use to communicate.
* Analyzing whether drugs may be used to promote the release of neurotransmitters in healthy cells. Neurotransmitters function like messengers in the brain, traveling in the synapses, carrying information from one cell to another.
Directors from each of the 30 centers will help decide which drugs will be tested and design the research projects. At UCSD, patients will be recruited through the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center in Hillcrest.
Before selecting the drugs that will be studied, experts will spend the next several months creating and redesigning tests to evaluate the affects of the proposed drugs.
This will enable researchers to open up the drug trials for the first time to patients who don’t speak English. A battery of tests will be translated into Spanish and other languages, Thal said.
Tests will also be devised so researchers can evaluate patients who are severely impaired by the disease. Patients who are in the latter stages of Alzheimer’s are now disqualified from drug trials because there are no tests to determine changes among demented patients.
Thal said the tests should be completed so the consortium can begin its first drug trials in the fall of 1992.
“This is a fabulous breakthrough,” said Wanda Smith, a volunteer with the local chapter of the Alzheimer’s Assn. “It’s going to mean hope for so many families.”
