USA2 SPOTLIGHT

From Politico Pro Pulse: ALZHEIMER’S GROUP SEEKS FUNDING BOOST — USAgainstAlzheimer’s is none too pleased that the president didn’t mention the disease in his State of the Union address, even though the administration has a goal of preventing and effectively treating it by 2025. Congress should allocate $2 billion annually for Alzheimer’s research and strengthen the clinical trials process to reduce the time and risk of getting potential treatments to market, the group said.

USA2 co-founder Trish Vradenburg will be a guest on tomorrow's The Diane Rehm Show (January 28th) where she'll talk about the film "Still Alice," an intimate, important look at how early onset Alzheimer’s can disrupt our daily lives – not to mention those of our friends and family. The film does the important work of putting the uncomfortable truth about Alzheimer’s out in the open. Click here to visit “The Diane Rehm Show” website to learn when the show will air in your time zone.

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A January 26, Miami Herald article reported on the efforts of Florida researchers to recruit clinical trial participants for Alzheimer's studies. According to the article, "In addition to the University of Miami, the NOBLE study is also underway at Mount Sinai’s Wein Center for Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders, the Segal Institute for Clinical Research and Infinity Clinical Research. About 50 sites, with more than 400 patients, are expected to participate in the Phase 2 trail of T-817MA…Researchers say there has long been a need for more and better therapies to attack Alzheimer’s. No new drug has been approved by the FDA since 2003 and the ones currently on the market fall into two types: cholinesterase inhibitors and memantine. Both kinds treat symptoms, but nothing has been found to prevent or slow AD’s progress. “What we have now is only for short-term improvement,” Schwartz said, “and we all know this disease is not a short-term thing.”

A January 26, 2015 San Francisco Business Times article reported that researchers at the Gladstone Institutes have found that "Blocking a pathway that plays a critical role in cleaving memories could halt memory loss in Alzheimer's disease patients." According to the article, "What's more, the researchers said, a handful of experimental drugs that affect this memory-paring mechanism already have been tested in Parkinson's disease patients, potentially accelerating the time it takes to bring an Alzheimer's drug to market…Researchers said a drug that uses this pathway to help Alzheimer's patients more easily remember things — but not restore specific lost memories — could be in human clinical trials as early as mid-2016."

A January 26, 2015 Miami Herald article profiled South Florida real estate developer Mitchell Robbins' efforts to raise funds for neurodegenerative research. According to the article, "Mitchell Robbins witnessed how a neurodegenerative disease can wreak havoc with both a loved one and his immediate family. His father, Arnold, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s and died six years ago…That experience has prompted Robbins to host a Thursday luncheon at his Wyndham Hotel in Boca Raton that will raise funds for Brandeis University’s neurodegenerative researchers through its Sustaining the Mind campaign. Sponsored by the Brandeis National Committee, the campaign seeks to raise $3 million to foster research in neuroscience and neurodegenerative diseases and to establish an endowed scholarship fund for students in the sciences. So far $2.2 million has been collected."