Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Columbia University

描述(由申请者提供)：哥伦比亚大学的ADRC致力于促进和传播阿尔茨海默病和其他与年龄相关的痴呆障碍的病因、预防和治疗的知识。为了做到这一点，我们维持并跟踪了正常老年人和患有认知障碍的老年人的多种族和多种族患者群体，以建立疾病的自然历史作为年龄和基因构成的函数。在这项应用中，我们建议使用各种神经心理学、神经学和成像工具来检查AD的早期阶段，并在这些受试者的一生中对他们进行跟踪，并将他们与其他痴呆疾病进行比较。将对与临床、放射学和遗传学数据相关的已故参与者进行全面的神经病理学检查。从这些受试者身上获得的组织和DNA将用于疾病的生物学和遗传学研究。ADRC内的个别研究项目将检查AD细胞和分子生物学的各个方面，重点是血脂、逆转录功能以及GBA突变与痴呆症的关系。在ADRC登记的患者将有机会参与治疗痴呆症的新药和治疗方法的试验，因为它们是可用的。这些患者的认知状况得到了很好的证明，因此非常适合纳入临床试验。哥伦比亚ADRC的教育和信息核心致力于教育普通人和医学界关于AD的知识，关于研究的最新进展和关于AD患者的护理。ADRC为哥伦比亚大学内外的科学家提供资源，通过授予试点拨款、提供组织和其他生物样本、通过提供仔细记录的患者群体以及通过多次研讨会和临床病理相关会议来鼓励新的研究途径。遗传学核心是ADRC和ADDC之间家庭招募和识别的主要组织者，也是基因分型和基因表达研究的资源。符合HIPAA标准的数据组织和统计咨询服务由ADRC向哥伦比亚大学及其外部的研究界提供。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ADRC at Columbia seeks to advance and disseminate knowledge of the causes, prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's Disease and other age-related dementing disorders. To do this, we maintain and follow a multi-ethnic and multi-racial patient population of normal elderly and the elderly with cognitive disorders to establish the natural history of the disease as a function of age and of genetic makeup. In this application we propose to use a variety of neuropsychological, neurological and imaging tools to examine the earliest stages of AD and to follow these subjects throughout their lives and to compare them to other dementing diseases. A comprehensive neuropathologic examination will be performed on the deceased participants correlated with the clinical, radiological and genetic data. Tissues and DNA obtained from these subjects will be available for research on the biology and genetics of the disease. Individual research projects within the ADRC will examine various aspects of the cellular and molecular biology of AD with emphasis on lipids, on retromer function and on the relationship of GBA mutations to dementia. Patients enrolled in the ADRC will have the opportunity to participate in trials of new drugs and treatments for dementing diseases as they become available. The well-documented cognitive status of these patients makes them highly suitable for inclusion in clinical trials. The Education and Information Core of the Columbia ADRC endeavors to educate both lay and medical communities about AD, about the latest advances in research and about the care of the AD patient. The ADRC serves as a resource for scientists with Columbia as well as outside of it, encouraging new research avenues by the award of pilot grants, by providing tissues and other biological samples, by providing access to a carefully documented patient population and by numerous seminars and Clinical Pathological Correlation Conferences. The Genetics Core serves as the major organizer of family recruitment and identification across the ADRCs and ADCs as well as resources for genotyping and gene expression studies. HIPAA compliant data organization and statistical consulting services are provided under the ADRC to the research community at Columbia and external to it.