June 06, 2014

Today's Top Alzheimer's News

George Vradenburg underscores tech's potential to transform healthcare, a new map highlights Alzheimer's impact across the nation, and a new report recommends quadruple funding for brain research (read more). 

Must reads

  • A June 5, 2014 Huffington Post piece by USA2 Chairman George Vradenburg highlighted the potential of technology to transform healthcare and advance research and care for diseases like Alzheimer's. According to Vradenburg, "To be sure, there are serious questions of ethics and privacy to be worked through, but it would be terribly misguided to let what-if anxieties stand in the way of very legitimate breakthrough health solutions. Especially at a time when age-related diseases like Alzheimer's are progressing at an astronomical pace, and ravaging countless lives in the process…The marriage of medicine and digital technology should be embraced. If the history of the Internet teaches us anything -- and surely it does -- it is that technology should and can be guided by carefully-crafted policy and social constraints without losing its power to advance society. Let's balance ethical and moral questions with the vigorous pursuit of technological development."
  • A June 5, 2014 PolicyMic and Slate article mapped out the most common forms of death by state and highlighted Alzheimer's disproportionate impact on 10 states.
  • A June 4, 2014 Washington Post article reported that an NIH advisory working group released a report that recommends quadruple funding for brain research over the next decade. According to the article, "Obama directed an initial investment of $100 million when he announced the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative in April 2013 to map the complex interactions between brain cells and neurological circuits. In a report released Thursday, an advisory working group recommended $400 million in funding for the National Institutes of Health for the project for each of the next five years, and $500 million annually for five years after that." Also reported on by The Wall Street Journal
Big Data Challenge 
  • A June 5, 2014 Alzforum article reported on the launch of The Alzheimer’s Disease Big Data DREAM Challenge and its potential "to accelerate Alzheimer’s research by uniting computer programmers, geneticists, clinicians, and other specialists in a common goal." According to the article, "The Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer’s Disease, one of the contest partners, will run a meeting later this month to discuss how big-data studies can contribute to Alzheimer’s research generally, said George Vradenburg, who convened the initiative. Future DREAM challenges addressing AD may incorporate exome and whole-genome sequences to the single-nucleotide polymorphisms included in the current project."