Must reads

• In  November 7, 2013 DSCC fundraising speech, President Barack Obama urged for bipartisan support to tackle issues like Alzheimer's. According to President Obama, "On issues like rebuilding our infrastructure, putting people back to work right now, medical research that can provide cures to things like cancer and Alzheimer's — these are all areas where we should be able to get things done.  But that’s going to require that not only we maintain a Democratic Senate, but also that we send a message that empowers some of the more common-sense Republicans to do the right thing."
• A November 7, 2013 Hew Haven Register article reported on Yale University's efforts to address gaps in geriatric research. According to the article, "An array of experts on growing old, including the head of the National Institute on Aging, met at Yale University Thursday to share the latest research findings of the Yale Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center. From chronic illness and risk of falling to cancer and Alzheimer’s disease, researchers are targeting those things that impinge on the health and well being of older people…Mary Tinetti, the center’s first director and a MacArthur Foundation genius grant winner, talked about new studies into how elderly people deal with multiple chronic conditions. For far too long, Tinetti said, medical research has looked at chronic geriatric conditions in isolation, without examining the overall effect of people taking multiple drugs to treat multiple conditions."
• A November 7, 2013 Science Daily article reported that Columbia University researchers have developed "a new method for predicting time to full-time care, nursing home residence, or death for patients with Alzheimer's disease." According to the article, "The method, which uses data gathered from a single patient visit, is based on a complex model of Alzheimer's disease progression that the researchers developed by consecutively following two sets of Alzheimer's patients for 10 years each. The results were published online ahead of print in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease."
• A November 7, 2013 Red Orbit article reported on the New York Academy of Sciences report that outlined the need for research reform for Alzheimer's R&D. According to the article, "The report said streamlining the development of Alzheimer’s drugs could reduce costs and speed the approval of drugs that mitigate or halt the disease…The report named several obstacles to identifying an effective Alzheimer’s disease treatment – particularly the high cost and lengthy development and research processes such as the large clinical trials that span multiple years. The report said the total cost of bringing an effective Alzheimer’s treatment to market currently is close to $6 billion—almost triple the industry average for drug development."

• A November 7, 2013 UC San Diego article announced the university received a $100 million gift to launch the Sanford Stem Cell Clinical Center. According to the article, "The Sanford Center will accelerate development of drugs and cell therapies inspired by and derived from current human stem cell research; establishing, promoting and disseminating clinical trials and patient therapies that will help more quickly transform promise into reality."

• Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer's Disease Announces a Big Data Challenge to Find New Predictors of Cognitive Decline [Sacramento Bee] (11/7/13)