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USF and Byrd Alzheimer's Institute
announce NIH/NIA-funded
and first-ever ADRC accreditation in Florida

TAMPA, Fla., April 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Partners in the effort, The University of South Florida and the Byrd Alzheimer's Institute are proud to announce Florida's first-ever National Institute on Aging (NIA) funded Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) grant. The prestigious ADRC grant supports three projects targeted at understanding Alzheimer's disease's destructive progression through the human mind, as well as supporting core facilities to assess Alzheimer's disease in patients. This center of excellence, located at the Byrd Institute, creates the first statewide research consortium in Florida dedicated to studying the fatal disease.

The Byrd Institute, led by CEO Huntington Potter, Ph.D., in collaboration with Mount Sinai Medical Center (Miami, Fla.) associate dean, Ranjan Duara, M.D., spearheaded the ADRC initiative in partnership with USF. Submitted by USF, the application advanced through a two-tier peer-review process and scored very well, ensuring Florida of a center that will integrate, coordinate, and support Alzheimer's researchers.

Dr. Potter was instrumental in urging the state of Florida to establish the Institute, was named to the original Board of Directors and is now CEO of the Institute. The Byrd Institute will make important contributions to the NIA ADRC effort. In addition to coordinating the multi-site ADRC, including computerized databases, videoconferencing facilities and MRI procedures for all subjects in the Clinical Core, the Institute will underwrite much of the administrative structure and personnel costs.

The University of South Florida is the applicant institution. However, the Byrd Alzheimer's Institute will provide the collaborative structure for the ADRC grant.

The state of Florida ranks second nationally in the number of Alzheimer's disease patients and claims the nation's highest percentage of people over age 60. There are an estimated 430,000 Alzheimer's patients stratified across race, ethnicity and demographics living in Florida.

USF President Judy Genshaft, Ph.D., said, "The extensive effort and cooperation required to establish an ADRC in Florida demonstrates USF's and the Byrd Institute's commitment to rallying talent, interest and energy to eliminate this deadly disease."

"The NIA is very pleased to establish an Alzheimer's Disease Center in a state with such a high number of older people, many of whom suffer from Alzheimer's disease," said Creighton H. Phelps, Ph.D., Director of the Alzheimer's Disease Centers Program at the NIA, which awarded the grant to the Florida Center. "We welcome the Florida program to the national network of Centers dedicated to research and care of AD patients and their families."

The ADRC's core mission builds upon Florida's 14 existing memory disorder clinics (MDC) and major medical Alzheimer's research centers, including the University of South Florida in Tampa, Mount Sinai Medical Center/Wein Center for AD in Miami, and the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.

The Byrd Institute ADRC grant poses three research questions: examining and understanding the Alzheimer's disease process; investigating early intervention strategies to slow disease progression; and studying how stimulating environments slow or reverse cognitive impairment. The research is supported by six expert "Cores" -- administrative, clinical, data management, neuropathology, education and behavior -- located at key medical and educational research centers throughout the state. The Byrd Institute ADRC will be successful because it builds on expertise around the state.

The Byrd Institute will share costs involved with running a multi-center ADRC and underwrite much of the administrative structure and personnel, including salaries and other costs, while continuing to conduct clinical and laboratory research. Additionally, in cooperation with the MDCs, the Byrd Institute ADRC is building one of the largest, highly secure databases of patient information, creating a bank of material that will provide invaluable research opportunities for years to come.

Both the Alzheimer's scientific community and the Byrd Institute's leaders believe the project's synergistic approach may one day lead to the development of novel, therapeutic interventions that can slow or alter dementia's destructive course.

ADRC Background

The NIA is one of 27 institutes and centers making up the National Institutes of Health at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. The NIA is the primary Federal agency supporting and conducting research on Alzheimer's disease and age-related cognitive decline. The NIA designates and funds a network of Alzheimer's Disease Centers across the U.S. Currently, there are 31 such Centers, classified as ADRCs (Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers) and ADCCs (Alzheimer's Disease Core Centers). The ADRCs, of which the new University of South Florida/Byrd Institute Center is one, are comprehensive centers with significant research projects as well as other core clinical, neuropathology, education and other functions.

Originally established in 1984, the Centers were set up to promote research, training, education, technology transfer and collaboration to improve diagnosis, treatment and overall understanding of AD and related dementias through clinical, pathology and education cores.

Areas of investigation range from the basic mechanisms of AD to managing the symptoms and helping families cope with the effects of the disease.

Centers provide investigators and research groups with well-characterized patients and control subjects, family information and tissue and biological specimens for use in research projects. Early research projects funded by the centers focused on possible causes of AD and changes in brain chemistry.

Established in 2002, the Institute is located on the grounds of the University of South Florida and is dedicated to the cure and prevention of Alzheimer's disease.

The Byrd Institute is governed and operated by a Florida not-for-profit corporation that is organized solely for the purposes of the Institute.