Diagnosing Dementia and Alzheimer’s Sooner
At the OBI’s Center for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases (CAND), Marc Diamond, M.D., is taking aim at tau, the protein that underlies the formation of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. His lab’s acclaimed research is moving ever closer to earlier detection and treatments.
“The optimism within our field after decades of no real progress with clinical therapies is unbelievable,” said Dr. Diamond, Director of CAND and Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience. “In the world we have created within our Center, we are finding evidence of the disease at a biochemical level before there’s any cognitive impairment.”
The overriding goal for Dr. Diamond and his CAND colleagues, including Sarah Shahmoradian, Ph.D., Pedro Rosa-Neto, M.D., Ph.D., and fellow researchers in the Diamond Lab, is to develop diagnostics and therapies to detect and treat Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias before they cause brain dysfunction. That includes working closely with clinician-investigators at UTSW’s Cognitive and Behavioral Clinic and beyond, using patient samples to test new ideas.
By focusing on the abnormal buildup of the tau protein that can transform into amyloids that damage and kill brain cells – leading to memory loss, personality changes, difficulty with language, and motor problems – Dr. Diamond is zeroing in on breakthroughs. Those include blood tests that are currently in clinical trials that can screen for dementia risk as well as new medications in development that are more effective than the handful now in use.
In addition, Ihab Hajjar, M.D., UTSW has recently received a $23 million, five-year Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center grant from the National Institute on Aging. The North Texas Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, led by Professor of Neurology and an OBI Investigator, will fund research into the basic mechanisms underlying Alzheimer’s and related dementias and clinical interventions for diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment.