Must reads

• A July 1, 2013 GovExec.com article profiled Dr. Francis Collin's leadership at the National Institute of Health including his role in tackling complex issues like Alzheimer's. According to Story Landis, director of the national Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, "Once Francis looked at the breadth and depth and wealth of exciting research in the brain sciences, he began to think seriously about a major initiative...Making progress on the burden of neurological disorders, if you think of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, schizophrenia and bipolar disorders, is going to require a much better understanding than we currently have."
• A July 1, 2013 Huffington Post opinion piece by Moncef Slaoui, chairman of research and development at GlaxoSmithKline, advocated for the need to incentivize medical innovation. According to Slaoui, "But as the FDA opens up new regulatory pathways and drug pipelines are getting stronger, in part because of great advances in science in certain areas and better collaboration between industry and academia, it's time to come up with some new solutions for advancing medical innovation…If we are going to continue to be at the forefront of research and innovation, we must prioritize the science we want to do that is in the public's best interest and provide reasonable incentives to speed innovation and make these important treatments available for patients."
• A June 28, 2013 Kaiser Health News article reported on the first meeting of the Long-Term Care Panel. According to the article, "The commission heard a litany of statistics from four experts who explained how the nation's growing population of seniors will become more dependent on long-term care services. But the rising cost of those services threatens to deplete individuals' savings and add to the nation's budget problems because of the expenses borne by Medicare and Medicaid."

• A July 2, 2013 Haaretz (Israel) article reported on new Israeli research that focuses on treating genetic mutations that leads to Alzheimer's disease. According to the article, "However, a new series of studies conducted in Israel and the United States that are to be published this week at the 21st annual Tel Aviv University Alzheimer’s Disease Conference show encouraging findings for therapies that take a different tack. These studies focus on Alzheimer’s Disease that occurs randomly, as in 95 percent of patients."

• A June 28, 2013 BrightFocus Foundation article reported that researchers at UC Davis discovered that a protein secreted with insulin travels through the bloodstream and accumulates in the brains of individuals with type 2 diabetes and dementia, in the same manner as the amyloid beta (Αβ) plaques that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease.