The Pathology-Molecular Core for this project will continue to provide postmortem diagnosis and will now provide apolipoprotein-E genotypes and storage capacity for serum and plasma for the entire cohort. The primary purpose of this core has been to support the clinical projects by providing state of the art neuropathological diagnosis. Because the program project was, from its inception, designed to be a large-scale epidemiologic project, routine or mandatory brain autopsy was not a realistic criterion for inclusion into the studies. However, we now intend to provide educational seminars in the community with the hope of enhancing autopsy acquisition. Our banked tissue has also been used for several studies examining the relationship between Alzheimer's disease (AD) and APOE and in a collaborative study of APOE in the diagnosis of AD. The importance of having autopsy confirmed diagnoses is obvious, and now, we will make a concerted effort to ascertain autopsy in patients at any stge of disease and controls. Because this project has made great strides in community relations regarding autopsy we are confident that the rate of autopsy confirmation will improve. Preliminary data indicates with efforts focused on the families of patients with late-stage disease, the rate of acceptance of autopsy can approach 50%. In addition to providing a neuropathological examination of participation who die in the program project, we will complete data entry forms for entry into program project database, collect and store fresh blood samples as serum and plasma for planned investigations, extract and store DNA for APOE genotypes and other planned genetic studies, distribute additional serum, plasma or DNA as needed to study investigators, provide relevant tissues to complete aims in projects related to APOE expression and interact with Columbia University's Taub Alzheimer's Disease Center Research Center.
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