Tag Alzheimers Blog

Bruce Bochy tapes a PSA for us at ATT Park

Bruce Bochy rehearses in the Giants' dugout at AT&T Park

I am often reminded of how rewarding my work is, but every now and then my job calls on me to do something that is just plain fun and yesterday was that day. We spent about an hour and a half on the field and in the Giants’ dugout at AT&T Park on a beautiful day while the grounds crew worked all around us to prepare for the evening’s game. We were there to set up and film our public service announcement for the Walk to End Alzheimer’s with Giants’ skipper Bruce Bochy. As most of you know, Bruce Bochy is the manager of the World Champion San Francisco Giants and he has helped us out since he joined the Giants five years ago.

He lost his mother to Alzheimer’s while he was Continue reading “Bruce Bochy tapes a PSA for us at ATT Park” »

Coming soon: Alzheimer’s listening session in San Francisco 8/10

You may have noticed the recent news about a new therapy for advanced melanoma. Good news. Listening to an interview with one of the scientists involved, he commented, “this is the payoff of decades of Federal investment in cancer research.” Indeed.

He made the case we make. The investment in cancer, heart disease and HIV/AIDS has been, and continues to be, a good one, making real differences in real people’s lives and bending the curve of cancer deaths downwards. We look now for a similar investment in Alzheimer’s disease before the Baby Boom generation is doomed to a huge wave of Alzheimer’s disease. Continue reading “Coming soon: Alzheimer’s listening session in San Francisco 8/10” »

Gov Brown Signs CA Budget – What does this mean for Alzheimer’s services?

Have you noticed that so many times during the day, something makes you think of Alzheimer’s?  It happens to me, too, and three occasions immediately come to mind.

Driving a few days ago and listening to the radio, NPR alerted me to a story I wanted to hear.  With only a few minutes to my destination, I hurried home, raced up the stairs and tuned in before even saying hello to everyone.  My house was a madhouse so I couldn’t focus as intently as I wanted, but the story was about innovative research on families in Colombia beset with early onset Alzheimer’s.  This research is risky as the subjects will be completely healthy individuals, rather than those already with dementia symptoms, and at least one of the studies has been done only on animals.  Potential human side effects are unknown and it can be a frightening situation.  Yet, you know as well as I do that desperate families often have the courage to try anything.  We thank them for saying “Yes, I want to participate.”  This same story was highlighted in a series by the New York Times a year ago; it’s taken all this time to obtain the necessary research funding and sign up participants.  We’ll definitely keep an eye on this exciting study. Continue reading “Gov Brown Signs CA Budget – What does this mean for Alzheimer’s services?” »

John’s summer project: learn to nurture a garden

John learns to nurture a summer garden

The tomatoes are in. So are green beans, eggplant, lettuce, peppers, squash, herbs, strawberries and radishes. This experiment of getting John engaged in new activities started with a few tomato plants, but it has become so much more.

In preparation, we hired someone to clear the area of our front yard that sits between our driveway and our neighbors. Everything but two rose trees were removed and hauled away. This left us with a sunny 12 by 8 foot plot. As a lifelong gardener, I was excited about the possibilities; John was worried about the amount of work involved but liked the idea of being outdoors. Continue reading “John’s summer project: learn to nurture a garden” »

Part 3: News/notes from Alzheimer’s Association Researchers’ Symposium at Stanford

The last group of presenters at the Alzheimer’s Association Researchers’ Symposium focused on research about imaging and biomarkers.

Geoffery Kerchner presents "Ultra-high resolution 7-tesla MRI: A new tool for studying Alzheimer's disease"

Beth Mormino, UC Berkeley presents "Beta-amyloid deposition in aging is associated with beneficial increases in brain activation during successful memory encoding"

Jing He, UC Davis presents "Influence of functional connectivity, brain atrophy and white matter lesions on episodic memory performance among cognitively normal elders"

Mike Weiner, UCSF presents "Using imaging and biomarkers for diagnosis, prediction of future course, and monitoring treament effects for Alzheimer's disease: Lessons from the Alzheimer's disease neuroimaging initiative"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As another great Alzheimer’s Association Researchers’ Symposium comes to a close, a last congratulations is due to all of our outstanding research award winners! There were three awards given for poster presentations. And recipients of the Alzheimer’s Association Awards for Excellence in Alzheimer’s Research are given to young scientists pursuing bachelor,  graduate or post-doc degrees:

Recipients for Alzheimer's Association awards for poster presentations and Excellence in Alzheimer's Research

Samuel Lockhart,  UC Davis “Age-related differences in functional connectivity and structural brain measures”

Kurt Lucin, Stanford University “Reduced beclin 1 in microglia impairs phagocytosis and amyloid-beta clearance”

Hwamee Oh, UC Berkeley “6-amyloid affects frontal and posterior brain networks in normal aging”

Nathan Woodling, Stanford “Prostaglandin EP4 receptor signaling in microglia reduced inflammation and amyloid burden in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease”

Daniel Swilling, Gladstone Institutes “Kynurenine 3-monooxygenaselinhibition in blood ameliorates neurodegeneration”

Poster session award winners:

First Place: Gregor Bieri, Kurt Lucin and Tony Wyss-Coray, Stanford University “Beclin 1 cleavage exacerbates neurodegeneration”

Second Place: Joel Watts, Kurt Giles, Abby Oehler, Stephen DeArmond, Stanley B. Prusiner, UCSF “Bioluminescence imaging of spontaneous and induced a-beta deposition in transgenic mice”

Third Place: Nathan Woodling, Ju Shi, Prachi Priyam, Qian Wang, Katrin Andreasson, Stanford “Protaglandin E2 e-prostanoid 4 receptor signaling in microglia reduces inflammation and amyloid burden in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease”

Part 2: News/notes from Alzheimer’s Association Researchers’ Symposium at Stanford

Before breaking for lunch, the room full of 150 Alzheimer’s researchers and scientists heard from a group of presenters about the latest in clinical and translational neuroscience. Presenters included Dr. Lea Grinberg from UCSF, who was  funded by the Alzheimer’s Association in 2009. Read more about her research at www.alz.org/research. Following is a summary of the most recent presenters:

Kate Possin, UCSF presents "Getting lost for different reasons: navigation impairments in neurodegenerative disease measured using methods translated from rodent models"

Frank Longo, Stanford University presents "Targeting neurotrophin signaling mechanisms for Alzheimer's disease therapeutics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lea Grinberg, UCSF presents "How ethnicity impacts the clinical threshold in Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia"

 

Julie Kuo, UC Davis presents 'Neurobiological and early life predictors of verbal practice effects in the elderly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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