NIH Tries to Turn Billions in New Funding Into Treatment for Alzheimer's

Congress has tripled the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) annual budget for Alzheimer's and related dementias over three years to $1.9 billion, which would be upped to $2.3 billion if two draft 2019 spending bills for NIH go through, reports Science . This funding boom aims to spur research into new treatments via grants from the National Institute on Aging (NIA). Alliance for Aging Research CEO Sue Peschin says this funding explosion was driven by intersecting trends that include families becoming more open about the disease and advocates lobbying for more funding. Congress in 2015 ordered NIH to prepare a "professional judgment" budget on Alzheimer's research, a wish list of needs to meet the 2025 target that would skip the federal budget process and go directly to the president and Congress. Peschin says advocates also pushed the Obama administration to include additional funding in the White House budget request. Some of NIA's recent funding opportunities solicit research on alternatives to the belief that ß-amyloid deposits outside brain cells and "tangles" of the protein tau within neurons are the key drivers of Alzheimer's and the best treatment targets. The announcements call for proposals in areas such as the role of protective genes, how neurodegeneration impacts other animal species, and how metabolic changes might affect Alzheimer's.