USF and Byrd Institute designated Florida's first Alzheimer's Disease Research Center

Tampa, FL (May 10, 2005) -- The University of South Florida, in collaboration with the Johnnie B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer's Research Center and Research Institute, has been awarded a $7.5-million, five-year federal grant to establish Florida's first Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC).

The grant from the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, will support comprehensive Alzheimer's research projects focusing on understanding the disease's destructive progression through the human mind and on core facilities to assess Alzheimer's disease in patients.

The ADRC designation validates the national prominence of USF and its affiliates in the field of Alzheimer's education, research and patient care, said Huntington Potter, PhD, the grant's principal investigator. Dr. Potter, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, holds the Eric Pfeiffer Endowed Chair in Alzheimer's Disease Research at USF and is CEO of the Byrd Institute.

"This is the highest award that the NIA gives – more significant than any single research award," said Eric Pfeiffer, MD, professor of psychiatry and director the Suncoast Gerontology and Alzheimer's Center. "Only the very best institutions in the country are designated Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers."  Dr. Pfeiffer will oversee the grant's education core.

In the current round of NIA funding, USF was one of only 13 institutions across the country receiving the ADRC grant.

USF will work with the Byrd Institute and other partners, including Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach and the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, to create the first ADRC based in Florida. The center will build upon Florida's 14 existing memory disorder clinics and provide core services, including data management, clinical, education and neuropathology, to Alzheimer's researchers at key medical and educational research centers across the state.

"We are excited that the USF Health Science Center's strategy of collaboration and integration has yielded this statewide grant to defeat Alzheimer's disease," said Stephen Klasko, MD, MBA, USF's vice president for health sciences and dean of the College of Medicine. "We need new approaches to prevention and cure, and at USF this grant will allow us to do more than dream about eradicating this debilitating illness."

Submitted by USF, the application for ADRC advanced through a two-tier peer-review process and scored very well, ensuring Florida of a center that will integrate, coordinate, and support Alzheimer's researchers.

The Byrd Institute will coordinate the multi-site ADRC, including computerized databases, videoconferencing facilities and MRI procedures for all subjects in the Clinical Core, and will underwrite much of the administrative structure and personnel costs.

"The extensive effort and cooperation required to establish an ADRC in Florida demonstrates USF's and the Byrd Institute's commitment to rallying talent, interest and energy to eliminate this deadly disease," said USF President Judy Genshaft.

The center is especially important to Floridians, Dr. Potter said, because the state has the nation's second-highest number of people with Alzheimer's disease. An estimated 430,000 Floridians suffer from Alzheimer's.

In addition to Dr. Potter and Dr. Pfeiffer, other USF researchers participating in the ADRC grant include Gary Arendash, PhD; William Haley, PhD; David Morgan, PhD; James Mortimer, PhD; and Yougui Wu, PhD.

The ADRC at USF and Byrd Institute will support 3 comprehensive research projects to:

• Better understand the transition from mild memory loss to Alzheimer's disease and find ways to identify those at high risk of developing Alzheimer's.

·        Use mouse models to study how stimulating environments might slow or reverse cognitive impairment.

·        Investigate early cognitive rehabilitation approaches to slow disease progression in patients.

-USF-

The University of South Florida Health Sciences Center is comprised of the colleges of Medicine, Nursing and Public Health and united by one mission "to advance collaborative learning and discovery leading to improved health in our community." USF has major affiliations with the area's teaching and research hospitals, providing an important diversity of educational experiences. In partnership with its affiliated hospitals, the Health Sciences Center's research funding jumped 21 percent last year to $145.4 million — more than half of which came from federal sources.