LEXINGTON, Ky. — November is Alzheimer’s Awareness Month, and according to The Alzheimer’s Association, 75,000 people over 65 in Kentucky suffer from the disease. This month, a researcher at the University of Kentucky earned funds to study more about the disease.
The University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center was recently awarded $1.7 million in grants for research that would examine slowing the risk of Alzheimer’s.
Associate director and professor of physiology Dr. Donna Wilcock never planned to stay in the United States for 23 years, but the United Kingdom native is here to stay. She’s been studying Alzheimer’s for as long as she’s been in the U.S.
“This is the station in the lab where we process a lot of patient blood and spinal fluid,” said Wilcock.
Her drive to study Alzheimer’s isn’t because she knows anyone with it—she said it’s because studying the disease was part of her first internship experience when she came to America. One of her focuses is trying to look for molecules in the blood that can help determine whether people have Alzheimer’s disease or some other dementia causing changes in their brain.
The U.S. resident now finds herself with a team of 12 researchers, in her 12th year at the Sanders-Brown Center for Aging.
“We have a range of different people in the lab, and Tiffany here has been with me in the lab for twelve years since I came,” Wilcock said. “She was my first hire and so she and I have worked together for over a decade on these projects.”
That team work is exactly what she said she needs, as the grant money will fund three years’ worth of research. The team will also focus on the effects of new Alzheimer’s drugs aducanumab and lecanemab, and how they could lead to a slower progression of the disease.
Wilcock’s team uses mice brains to reveal similar symptoms to people with Alzheimer’s.
“This would be an amyloid plaque and these are what we see in the Alzheimer’s brain and this is what the therapy is targeted to clear and so when we give the antibody we clear these amyloid plaques,” Wilcock explained.
Wilcock said one challenge of the research is identifying appropriate patient populations that will get the most benefit.
“That’s what we hope a big part of this research will do… is that it will help us better identify what the risk factors are and what kind of patients need to avoid this drug versus what patients might actually benefit,” said Wilcock.
The research will take years, but Wilcock is hopeful her team will produce results to continue to be funded, because she knows the people suffering need this research the most.
There is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s. If you’d like to hear more about the disease, the University of Kentucky will host the 12th annual Markesbery Symposium on Aging and Dementia on November 18th from 11a.m. through 4 p.m. Click here to stay up to date with the team’s research progress.