Fort Worth researchers get $45 million for Alzheimer’s study in Mexican community
Fort Worth researchers get $45 million for Alzheimer’s study in Mexican community
University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth researchers will be the recipients of a grant award expected to total more than $45 million to examine the biological differences that cause Alzheimer’s disease to disproportionately afflict Mexican Americans.
The funding — from the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health — is the largest research grant ever awarded to the Health Science Center, according to a university news release.
“This is a transformative award for our university,” HSC President Dr. Michael Williams said. “HSC is recognized as a national leader in the quest to unlock the mysteries of Alzheimer’s disease and to discover new interventions to help prevent this deadly disease.”
Sid O’Bryant, professor and executive director of the Institute for Translational Research, and Leigh Johnson, the program’s associate director, seek to understand the biological framework of Alzheimer’s disease in multi-ethnic populations and how it differs from that of non-Latino whites, the release said.
For example, Mexican Americans develop Alzheimer’s disease 10 years earlier than whites on average. Most of the existing Alzheimer’s research focuses on non-Latino whites, the release said.
The new funding will build on the HABLE (Health & Aging Brain among Latino Elders) study, a five-year project at HSC that O’Bryant started in 2017, which is funded by a $12 million National Institutes of Health grant.
Almost 1,000 Mexican Americans and 1,000 non-Latino whites 50 and older from North Texas have enrolled in the study into how different biological causes relate to Alzheimer’s disease across ethnicities.
HABLE participants undergo free comprehensive interviews, functional exams, clinical laboratory tests, a brain MRI and more.
With the new funding, HSC will create a state-of-the-art imaging center in the Institute for Translational Research where researchers will look for Alzheimer’s biomarkers. Two years later, each participant will undergo two more examinations so researchers will be able to compare how the proteins have progressed.
The examinations will allow researchers to observe the differences in Mexican Americans and non-Latino whites, the release said.
Mexican Americans represent the fastest-growing aging population in the country. It is estimated that 1 million Mexican Americans will be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease by 2030, the release said.
While novel interventions may be years away, HABLE program participants may benefit immediately from medical information gathered. Participants can request the results of the comprehensive medical exams be shared with their health care providers to help guide their current medical decisions.
Because the new imaging center where participants will undergo scans is on the HSC campus, the HABLE project team won’t have to refer participants out to private imaging centers for the valuable but costly scans.
“Very few laboratories in the county will have the imaging capability that the Institute for Translational Research will have at HSC,” O’Bryant said.
All data recorded through the study will be shared publicly with the scientific community throughout the duration of the project to aid other investigators in their quest for Alzheimer’s breakthroughs, Johnson said.
O’Bryant also is overseeing the first study of a blood test to detect Alzheimer’s disease within a primary care setting. That study, also underway at HSC, is funded by a separate $6.5 million through the National Institute on Aging.
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