圣路易斯华盛顿大学医学院阿尔茨海默长程研究获国立卫生研究院3200万美元续资助：五年期支持至2031年，流动诊所拟新招300名参与者
圣路易斯，密苏里州 — 圣路易斯华盛顿大学医学院 11 月 10 日公布，该校健康老龄化与老年痴呆项目获美国国立卫生研究院下属国家老龄化研究所 3200 万美元、为期五年的续期资助，将支持该研究至 2031 年，届时为项目第 45 年。该项目为运行时间最长的阿尔茨海默病纵向研究之一，自创立以来已招募 1877 人以上。
该项目由神经学家 Leonard Berg 于上世纪 70 年代创立，1985 年在此基础上成立该校阿尔茨海默病研究中心，为全美最早的十家同类中心之一。现任项目负责人、神经学教授 John C. Morris 自 1998 年起主持该项目。他表示，四十年前阿尔茨海默病只能在患者去世后经脑部显微检查确认，因参与者年复一年、跨越数代持续参与，研究界现已知该病在记忆衰退前很久即在脑内悄然开始，当前目标是在脑细胞死亡前阻止病程，并使这一目标覆盖所有人群。
校方称，新资助将支持两项工作。其一是扩大参与者构成：团队拟把一项在圣路易斯北部已招募约 40 人的试点扩展至 300 人，纳入教育、收入与健康史各异的参与者，并以流动诊所进入社区采集数据与血液等组织样本，参与者有机会获转介至所需健康服务。自 1998 年以来，该中心黑人参与者比例已由 3% 提升至 17%。研究还将检验部分阿尔茨海默病生物标志物是否在黑人与白人参与者间存在差异。
其二是追踪真实诊疗环境中接受新近可得阿尔茨海默病治疗的患者的反应，以了解这些在部分人群中显示可延缓病程的疗法在严格受控临床试验之外的实际效果。校方称，新资助下项目工作重点将更多放在预防方向。
（来源：华盛顿大学医学院）
WashU Medicine Alzheimer Study Renewed With 32 Million Dollars From the NIH Over Five Years: Funding Runs Through 2031, and a Mobile Clinic Will Help Enroll 300 New Participants
St. Louis, Missouri — The Healthy Aging and Senile Dementia program at WashU Medicine has been renewed with an award of 32 million dollars over five years from the National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health, the medical school announced on November 10. The renewed funding will support the study through 2031, which will be its 45th year. The program is one of the longest running longitudinal studies of Alzheimer disease and has enrolled more than 1,877 people since its inception.
The program was started in the 1970s by neurologist Leonard Berg, and its initial funding enabled the establishment of the Alzheimer Disease Research Center at WashU Medicine in 1985 as one of the first 10 such centers in the United States. John C. Morris, MD, the Harvey A. and Dorismae Hacker Friedman Distinguished Professor of Neurology, has led the program since 1998. Forty years ago, we could not confirm Alzheimer until after death, Morris said. Because people have volunteered to come to us year after year and across multiple generations, we have learned the disease starts silently in the brain long before memory fails. Our goal now is to stop the disease process before it causes brain cells to die, and to do that for all groups of people.
With the renewed funding, the team aims to expand a pilot study that enrolled about 40 participants in north St. Louis to include 300 people with varied education, income levels and health histories, the school said. A mobile clinic will go into neighborhoods to collect data, blood and other tissue samples from volunteers, who will have the opportunity to be connected to health services if they need them. Since 1998, the center has raised the proportion of Black study participants from 3 percent to 17 percent. The program will also examine whether some biomarkers of Alzheimer may vary between Black and white participants.
Second, researchers plan to track how patients in non research clinical care settings who are receiving newly available Alzheimer treatments are responding to them, to gain insight into the real world impact of therapies shown to slow progression in some people, outside the controlled realm of clinical trials. The school said the renewed program will focus more on prevention and on enrolling a wider range of participants.
(Source: Washington University School of Medicine)
来源：华盛顿大学医学院
发布：GSM·美国（发布链接）
图片来源：图：华盛顿大学医学院神经学教授 John Morris。照片：华盛顿大学医学院。 / Photo: John Morris, professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine. Washington University School of Medicine.
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