Research into the causes, presentation, prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) increasingly demands a team-based multi-disciplinary approach that includes clinicians, clinical and basic science researchers. The goal of the University of Washington Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Research Education Component (UW ADRC REC) is to foster the development of a thriving, innovative and diverse ADRD research community that is able to define the varied biological and mechanistic drivers of ADRD. The UW ADRC REC will first provide a one year broad-based curriculum to REC Trainees, including basic, translational and clinical research trainees, in order to establish a common understanding of the clinical presentation of ADRD as they are ere encountered in the clinic and studied in the lab. Support for the widespread use of teleconferencing at training sessions and UW ADRC meetings will provide access to this dynamic clinical and research environment to ADRD investigators studying aging and ADRD in American Native communities and populations. The UW ADRC REC will second provide support to REC Investigators new to the UW ADRC or entering the ADRD research field for the first time in accessing and interacting with the vast array of expertise, data and resources available within the UW ADRC ecosystem. This support is explicitly targeted to include young investigators whose developing research programs will form the pipeline for research utilizing resources and data generated by the UW ADRC in the future. Last, the UW ADRC REC will seek to fill a critical gap in training and expertise in the use of publicly available ADRD-related `big data' throughout the national ADRD research community. Through its partnership with Seattle-based Sage Bionetworks, it will establish and support an annual two-day ADRD Open Neuroscience Workshop that will help ADRD-focused trainees and investigators develop proficiency with publicly-available datasets, their origins and structures, their user interfaces, and statistical and computational approaches to their use. These workshops will be open to individuals at the UW ADRC and other ADRCs nationally. Through ongoing collaborations Sage Bionetworks, it will further support the seeding and support of mentored Open Neuroscience working groups focused on developing new research projects based on these data. This will include the progressive use of integrated clinical, neuropsychometric, imaging and biomarker, genetic and pathological data generated throughout the UW ADRC in these ADRD Open Neuroscience Workshops.
