The University of Pennsylvania Health System has recently received a $6 million gift to study Alzheimer's disease.
Officials announced last Thursday the formation of the Marian S. Ware Alzheimer Program, a three-part initiative designed to accelerate drug discovery, coordinate patient care and further clinical research in the Alzheimer's field.
This program was funded by a gift from Marian Ware, a supporter of UPHS research and treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
"The timely and extraordinarily generous gift from Marian S. Ware will be invaluable to advancing Penn's contributions to several realms of this vital work," said Arthur Rubenstein, executive vice president of the Penn Health System and the dean of the School of Medicine, in an official statement.
Alzheimer's disease is a degenerative neurological disease that impairs memory and is an increasing problem in the elderly today.
There is no cure, or even an efficient diagnostic method, for the disease that affects 10 percent of people over 65 years old, almost half of those over 85 and over four million people nationally.
The program is unique in that it gathers people from many fields in the health system to further its goals.
Participating groups include members of Penn's Alzheimer's Disease Center, the Center for Neurodegenerative Research, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the School of Nursing.
These groups are "equal members of a very dynamic and integral team," said John Trojanowski, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center and a member of the newly formed drug development team.
Trojanowski also said that Penn provides a perfect medium through which such an effort can be made because it is "an enormously collaborative institution."
The three initiatives are designed to comprehensively advance multiple aspects of Alzheimer's treatment.
The drug discovery program hopes to "translate recent discoveries of potential drug targets into novel therapeutics for Alzheimer's disease," Trojanowski wrote in the proposal for the program.
The clinical research initiative concentrates on developing and integrating a "Care Coordination Model," which aims to provide guidelines for Alzheimer's patient care for UPHS.
The patient care initiative emphasizes the search for a more efficient method of diagnosing cases of Alzheimer's disease.
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