NIH Increases Funding for Large Scale Alzheimer's Biomarker Study

The U.S. National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Aging (NIA) has allocated additional funding for biomarker measures to the Health and Aging Brain Among Latino Elders study, reports Clinical OMICs . The five-year grant to the University of North Texas Health Science Center (HSC) at Fort Worth is expected to total $45.5 million, backing research on health disparities in brain aging and Alzheimer's disease between Mexican Americans and non-Latino whites. The study aims to guarantee that Alzheimer's biomarker analyses are increasingly representative of the U.S. population. HSC's Health and Aging Brain Among Latino Elders-Amyloid Tau and Neurodegeneration project will yield a variety of biological, behavioral, environmental, and sociocultural data to consider the overall view of Alzheimer's impact throughout people's lives. Data also will be generated to determine whether Mexican Americans experience the same Alzheimer's biomarker pathway detailed in previous studies. "Measuring additional biomarkers in this population will provide important clues to guide approaches to target the right disease processes in the right people at the right time," said NIA Division of Neuroscience Director Eliezer Masliah.