|
UC Santa Barbara Awarded $2 Million for Alzheimer's Research
February 5, 2008
(Santa
Barbara, Calif.) –– The University of California, Santa Barbara has
been awarded nearly $2 million from the Larry L. Hillblom Foundation
for innovative research in Alzheimer's disease. The grant will support
research on the neurofibrillary tangles that, in addition to amyloid
plaque, are a hallmark of the disease. The research effort will
be led by Kenneth Kosik, co-director of UCSB's Neuroscience Research
Institute and Harriman Professor of molecular, cellular, and
developmental biology. He will head the Larry L. Hillblom Center for
Neurodegeneration Research at UC Santa Barbara, which will exist for
the duration of the four-year, $1,970,291 project. Kosik has
spent most of his career studying the neurofibrillary tangles of
Alzheimer's disease. His research group at Harvard University, where he
was previously a faculty member, was one of the first to discover that
"tau" is the protein involved in the tangles. Recent discoveries in his
lab at UCSB helped to attract the foundation's attention. The new
research is highly interdisciplinary in its approach; a team with a
wide range of specialties will carry out the research. Said UCSB
Chancellor Henry T. Yang: "We are extremely grateful for this generous
support from the Larry L. Hillblom Foundation, which will enable us to
launch a truly novel research network directed toward the
neurofibrillary pathology of Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal
dementia. Our campus is very proud of the pioneering contributions and
interdisciplinary approach of Professor Ken Kosik and the entire
research team, all of whom are renowned leaders in their fields." Kosik
explained that the grant proposal was submitted to the Hillblom
Foundation because the foundation recognizes not just the importance of
interdisciplinary research, but also its challenge. He said that the
foundational biology in this research project that is the basis for
biomedical advances is increasingly choked off in the current funding
atmosphere in which research is evaluated for its immediate
"translational value" –– meaning quick clinical applications and
medications. "A firm foundation is needed before we can do the
translation," said Kosik. "The basic underlying biological foundation
must be understood first, but right now the pendulum has swung far to
the application side. The Hillblom Foundation is providing a major
service by laying the basis for translational research." Tau, the
protein, is normally found in brain cells, but scientists don't know
why it clumps into tangles. "The goal of the grant is to understand
this process better," said Kosik. The research project is built
on the hypothesis that the accumulation of tau protein is due to a
failure of the protein degradation machinery. "To survive, all cells
need to be able to remove damaged proteins," said Kosik. "There is no
doubt that the protein that is collecting into tangles is damaged. We
don't know why it doesn't get removed; we do know that the cells are
trying to remove it." He explained that cells normally use an
enzyme to chop up and remove the damaged protein. "But it is not
getting chopped down, degraded, as it should," said Kosik. "Also, it is
sequestered in one place, pushed to one place. More and more of it then
fills up the cell." Kosik said that it is possible the cell can't
handle it and pushes it aside –– or maybe tau is toxic in this form. He
also said that since the relationship between amyloid plaques and
neurofibrillary tangles is unknown, it is possible that the protein in
the plaque is fundamental to triggering the disease. It may initiate
the tangles, he explained. Members of the diverse team and their research strengths include: - Kenneth Kosik, cell biological and neurobiological expertise
- Stuart Feinstein, co-director of the Neuroscience Research Institute, biochemical expertise
- Omar Saleh, assistant professor of materials, physics and single molecule expertise
- Frank Doyle, professor of chemical engineering, systems engineering expertise and experience at modeling data mathematically
- Linda Petzold, professor of mechanical engineering, computational expertise and mathematical perspectives
A number of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars are also participating. With
the support of the Hillblom Foundation, the Kosik research team may
thus elucidate an important piece of the puzzle of this disease that
affects five million Americans. Based in Petaluma, California,
the Larry L. Hillblom Foundation is funded through a bequest from Larry
L. Hillblom, a respected international businessman who was one of the
three founders of DHL Worldwide Express. Hillblom designated that the
foundation's funding should be used to support medical research with
particular attention to research programs conducted by the University
of California.
###
(89)
|
