The Genetics Coordinating Core (GCC) at Columbia has been in existence for two years. The Core was initially supported through a supplement from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers (ADRC/ADC) Program, with the goal of coordinating the collection of families in which two or more individuals have Alzheimer's disease from the collaborating centers. The overall program is entitled the NIA-Genetics Initiative for Late-Onset Alzheimer's Disease (NIA-LOAD Study). The collection of these families was designed using a multi-center approach that originally included 10 ADCs and was later expanded to include 18 centers for which Columbia University's ADRC has been the Coordinating Center. In addition, ADCs not included in the NIA Genetics Initiative have been able to submit families for consideration. Over the past year and a half, the GCC at the Columbia ADRC has developed, circulated and refined a procedures manual, reviewed and approved over 500 families for inclusion in the National Cell Repository for Alzheimer's Disease (NCRAD), specified the type of data to be collected and transmitted to NCRAD and have developed standardized format to collect age-at-onset, assess cognitive performance, collect biomarkers and autopsy material. The goals for the GCC over the next 5 years are to: expand the current collection of families by identifying and examining new families meeting NIA-LOAD criteria for inclusion, assist the participating centers to identify newly affected family members within existing families, develop and implement follow-up procedures, including autopsy, for the participating families and family members, facilitate and coordinate the recruitment of up to 1,000 individuals unrelated to the participating families without dementia to form """"""""control"""""""" group similar in age, sex and ethnic background for association analyses by using similar methods to identify potential individuals, and develop and implement methods for standardized assessment of a series of quantitative traits for application in the NIA-LOAD study.
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