Penn Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC)

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Penn ADRC Overall Project Summary The mission of the University of Pennsylvania’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (Penn ADRC) is to increase research and education on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and its links to related dementias (ADRD) with the goal of identifying the causes of and cures for AD/ADRD. To do so, the Penn ADRC will address one of the fundamental barriers to effective treatment or prevention, which is the significant phenotypic, pathological, and sociodemographic heterogeneity of AD. We will embrace and seek to characterize and understand this heterogeneity to ultimately achieve a precision medicine approach leading to targeted interventions that will facilitate realization of the National Alzheimer’s Project Act’s (NAPA) ambitious goal of effective prevention or treatment by 2025. Indeed, the Penn ADRC is constructed to directly contribute to a number of the milestones of NAPA necessary to achieve this goal. Emerging from the 30-year history of the Penn Alzheimer’s Disease Core Center (ADCC), the Penn ADRC benefits from a rich scientific milieu in which there is significant integration and collaboration across Penn’s neurodegenerative disease centers. This construction is critical to the understanding of AD heterogeneity which is driven, in part, by overlapping pathologies and mechanisms, such that cross-degenerative disease studies are of increasing importance in capturing the full spectrum of disease. This environment has led to a history of transformative research that has influenced understanding of disease definition and mechanisms, diagnostic approaches and biomarker development, statistical and bioinformatics methodology, and ethical, social and legal perspectives of those suffering from this condition and their care partners. It has also created an intellectual, cultural, and physical setting dedicated to training the next generation of investigators and clinicians, as well as partnering and educating the community. To achieve our mission, the Penn ADRC will bring together eight cores (Administrative; Biomarker; Clinical; Data Management and Statistical; Genomics; Neuroimaging; Neuropathology; Outreach, Recruitment, and Engagement) and the Research Education Component (REC). These highly integrated cores will support development of a phenotypically, pathologically, and ethno-racially diverse cohort which will be deeply characterized through cognitive assessments, measures of social determinants of health, genetics, biofluid and neuroimaging biomarkers, and autopsy. All these data will be stored within the Integrated Neurodegenerative Disease Database (INDD), which is linked to the other neurodegenerative centers at Penn and will contribute to our understanding of the upstream factors and processes that lead to AD heterogeneity and its downstream manifestations. Further, the ADRC supports robust sharing of these data and participation in larger NIA and national programs. The REC leverages these cores and their research programs for training new investigators. Together, the Penn ADRC will advance our ultimate mission to reduce the tremendous burden of AD.