Tom Vasich at the University of California Irvine did a Q&A with CIRM grantee Frank LaFerla in advance of the September 30 Southern California Alzheimer’s Disease Research Conference. La Ferla and his colleagues have been working on stem cell-based therapies for Alzheimer's disease.
In a question about the public health impact of Alzheimer's disease LaFerla said:
It’ll be enormous, especially locally. California has the nation’s largest baby boom population; Orange County by itself ranks fifth. Alzheimer’s is going to hit us hard, because age is the most significant risk factor for the disease. One of every 20 people over 65 will be affected by dementia, and eventually half of those over 85 will suffer from Alzheimer’s. This is going to put an amazing strain on our healthcare system and on families.
He went on to talk about his own research, funded by CIRM:
We’ve had a lot of success with animal models showing that neural stem cells can reverse Alzheimer’s-like cognitive deficits. We’ve progressed to creating a population of human neural stem cells that will be the basis of clinical trials on patients. We’re still in the early stages, and we’re fortunate to have received a grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine that is supporting our work.
We had the pleasure of talking to LaFerla about this week a few years ago. In this video, he describes the work and the importance of finding a therapy for the disease.
This week marks Brain Awareness Week, with events worldwide to bring people up to speed on brain research. I went to the cool search tool on the Dana Foundation web site and found that several CIRM grantees are hosting events this week. That makes sense, given that roughly a quarter of our funding goes to neuronal diseases. (You can see charts of CIRM stem cell research funding allocations here. The charts are slightly out of date — stay tuned for some updates in the next month.)
Brain diseases are seen as a big challenge for stem cell therapies, in part because the brain itself is such a complex web of neurons. Simply replacing a few lost neurons won't necessarily replicate the lost connections. We have a story discussing some of those issues and describint innovative approaches CIRM grantees are taking to developing new cures for brain diseases.
The good news is that some CIRM grantees are learning that stem cells can be coaxed to form the support cells in the brain that nourish neurons. These support cells could be what provide a therapy for diseases such as ALS, MS, stroke and spinal cord injury. Other grantees are using stem cells in the lab to test new drugs for Parkinson's disease.
A group at UC Davis is attempting to use the body's own mesenchymal stem cells to preserve unaffected neurons in people with Huntington's disease. This technique won't bring back lost cells, but saving additional cells from dying off could prevent some of the terrible side effects of the disease.
Another team of CIRM grantees at UC Irvine found that at least in rodents, stem cells were able to repair some memory loss due to Alzheimer's disease. This work is a long way from treating humans, but still provides hope for people who have lost loved ones to this devastating disease. Here's a video we produced about that work:
We've produced several other videos about CIRM's brain related research:
Nobel Prize winner Stanley Prusiner was one of the authors on a letter to the New York Times on October 27 advocating that congress pass legislation that “would raise the annual federal investment in Alzheimer’s research to $2 billion, and require that the president designate an official whose sole job would be to develop and execute a strategy against Alzheimer’s.”
Prusiner, who is director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at UCSF, along with retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and gerontologist/psychologist Ken Dychtwald, wrote:
As things stand today, for each penny the National Institutes of Health spends on Alzheimer’s research, we spend more than $3.50 on caring for people with the condition. This explains why the financial cost of not conducting adequate research is so high. The United States spends $172 billion a year to care for people with Alzheimer’s. By 2020 the cumulative price tag, in current dollars, will be $2 trillion, and by 2050, $20 trillion.
If we could simply postpone the onset of Alzheimer’s disease by five years, a large share of nursing home beds in the United States would empty. And if we could eliminate it, as Jonas Salk wiped out polio with his vaccine, we would greatly expand the potential of all Americans to live long, healthy and productive lives — and save trillions of dollars doing it.
Their letter came days after CIRM board member Leeza Gibbons joined California’s First Lady Maria Shriver in her first March on Alzheimer’s at the California Women’s Conference. Gibbons founded Leeza's Place to provide support for caregivers of people with Alzheimer's disease and other disorders. The march raised a quarter of a million dollars for Alzheimer’s research.
During Alzheimer’s disease awareness month here are some numbers to keep in mind, from the NYT letter:
Starting on Jan. 1, our 79-million-strong baby boom generation will be turning 65 at the rate of one every eight seconds. That means more than 10,000 people per day, or more than four million per year, for the next 19 years facing an increased risk of Alzheimer’s. Although the symptoms of this disease and other forms of dementia seldom appear before middle age, the likelihood of their appearance doubles every five years after age 65. Among people over 85 (the fastest-growing segment of the American population), dementia afflicts one in two. It is estimated that 13.5 million Americans will be stricken with Alzheimer’s by 2050 — up from five million today.
CIRM has a Alzheimer's disease fact sheet about stem cell therapies for Alzheimer’s disease, and a list of all awards addressing Alzheimer’s disease funded by CIRM. One of those grantees, Frank LaFerla, is in this video about a discovery he made as part of the CIRM-funded research.
At CIRM we want nothing more than to find cures for the diseases that afflict people around the world. Until that day comes, many of the diseases we hope to cure — Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injury, ALS, to name a few — place an incredible burden on the caregivers in addition to the patients themselves.
Caregivers have no greater advocate than Leeza Gibbons, who also serves on the CIRM governing board. Her online caregiver support network, Leeza’s Place, is celebrating National Family Caregiver Month with events throughout the country to both support and educate caregivers. A list of those events is available here.
On her blog, Leeza wrote:
At Leeza’s Place, we know the job of being a caregiver is both frustrating and fantastic; isolating and invigorating; a blessing and a burden. Those husbands and wives, daughters, sons and friends who care for someone they love often find they are stronger than they ever imagined they could be.
As we celebrate those courageous spirits, we offer respect and gratitude to all who are on the front lines of humanity. A month recognizing caregivers is just a starting point for us to create more national awareness, better support, respite and care. At Leeza’s Place, this month (and every month) we offer hugs of support, approval and a blanket of love!
To hear more about Leeza’s Place and Leeza’s caregiving mantra of “Take Your Oxygen First” visit their online media page here.
Here is Dan Desmond, who has ALS, paying a touching tribute to his wife and caregiver, Gloria Desmond.
He described how Id keeps stem cells as stem cells – increasing in number, but not settling down and choosing a specialty. When Dr. Iavarone and his colleagues turned Id off, stem cells were allowed to stop dividing and start differentiating.
“We are now beginning to screen chemical libraries to find molecules that target Id,” Dr. Iavarone explained. “We believe anti-Id agents will be effective at inhibiting tumor growth.”
This type of work will be critical for developing therapies to combat cancer or replace damaged neurons in neurodegenerative diseases.
