Analysis Core

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Project Summary – Analysis Core The number of people living with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and AD-related dementias (AD/ADRD) is expected to almost triple by 2050. In the US, Hispanic Americans will comprise an ever-larger fraction of this population, as their numbers are increasing, and they have higher risk for and earlier onset of AD/ADRD. Despite much effort and funding to focused on developing effective drug therapies, breakthroughs remain challenging. An urgent need persists to develop efficient social and behavioral interventions to support people living with dementia and their caregivers. Also, there is a need to refine AD/ADRD risk stratification and responsiveness to treatments. A key barrier to understanding how complex social/behavioral structures impact aging of Hispanic Americans is that they are vastly underrepresented both in the research workforce and as participants in research studies. To overcome these challenges, the Analysis Core (AnC) of the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) AD/ADRD Resource Center for Minority Aging Research (AD/ADRD-RCMAR) at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) will support high-quality, cutting-edge research in priority areas of behavioral and social science research on AD/ADRD by RCMAR scientists, focusing on Hispanic Americans, and particularly Mexican Americans of the impoverished US-Mexico border region in Texas. The breadth and depth of AD/ADRD-RCMAR projects require state-of-the-art analytic approaches that enable longitudinal, high- dimensional, and integrative analyses of data at the phenotypic, genetic, and environmental levels to exploit relevant biomarkers and biological risk determinants that can point to interacting factors that may be targets for interventions. The AnC will conduct such analyses for AD/ADRD-RCMAR scientists and further meet the field’s needs by providing instructional higher-order analytical skill-building and technical training to fully prepare a cadre of diverse minority early career stage investigators. The AnC, led by experts with a broad range of complementary expertise, will serve as a critical mechanism for maximizing rigor and impact of the research conducted by AD/ADRD RCMAR scientists. For the new funding cycle, we will achieve our objectives via the following Specific Aims: 1) Provide analytical expertise and training in relevant statistical and bioinformatics methods appropriate for complex, multisystem, and high dimensional data, including a novel integrative analytical framework for diverse large data sets. 2) Maximize cross-study and cross-modality analyses among all AD/ADRD-RCMARs’ projects by organizing and make available existing data sets on aging Mexican Americans residing in South Texas into a central repository hosted in our high-performance computing cluster. 3) Disseminate scientific information on measurement tools, novel methodological developments, and new data resources produced by and/or available to the AD/ADRD-RCMAR. Unique strengths of the RGV AnC include experienced core leaders, a rich training and mentoring environment, the ability to foster careers of minority investigators, and access to longitudinal cohorts of Mexican Americans.