The overall goal of this proposed renewal of the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Core Center (Rush ADCC) is to continue to provide an infrastructure to support cutting edge research on MCI, AD, and other dementias by providing researchers with clinical data and biologic specimens from persons with and without cognitive impairment for independently funded projects. The Rush ADCC has been in continuous operation since 1991. It has six Cores carefully designed to support a variety of timely and important areas of research including: 1) Studies of the neurobiology of MCI, AD, and other dementias;2) Studies linking risk factors to ante-mortem and post-mortem indices of MCI, AD, and other dementias;3) Studies with substantial participation by racial and ethnic minorities;and 4) Studies that facilitate the overall goals and mission of the Rush ADCC, the Alzheimer's Disease Centers program, and the AD research community. The six Rush ADCC cores are designed to achieve these overall goals. The Administrative Core provides scientific leadership to the ADCC as a whole. The Clinical Core collects data using the uniform data set procedures as designed and implemented by the AD Centers Clinical Task Force, and emphasizes careful follow-up and autopsy of racial and ethnic minorities, and persons with atypical dementias. The Religious Orders Study Core, begun in 1993, follows a group of more than 1000 older men and women members of Catholic religious communities who have agreed to annual detailed clinical evaluations and to brain donation at death. The Neuropathology Core stores obtains, processes, stores and evaluates ante-mortem and postmortem biologic specimens tissue in accordance with the Neuropathology Data Set defined by NACC from persons evaluated by the Clinical and Religious Orders Study Cores. The Education and Information Transfer Core provides a wide range of educational programs to support outreach and recruitment of racial and ethnic minorities into the Clinical and Religious Orders Study Core. The Data Management and Biostatistics Core, begun in 1995, supplies computer systems for data acquisition and unified data management for all ADCC cores, biostatistical consultation both to the Cores and to investigators using Core data, and transfer of data to NACC and approved investigators outside the Rush ADCC utilizing the data and resource sharing policies in the Administrative Core.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 786 publications
