Great things happen when the UCI community comes together. On Wednesday, June 3rd, you are invited to join the faculty and staff of UCI MIND and move toward a world without Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. With your help on UCI Giving Day, UCI…
IN THE NEWS: Orange County companies, residents, students, alumni and philanthropists rally around UCI Health to help shore up supplies for the COVID-19 outbreak.
When national health authorities sent out the first alerts in January about the novel cor…
As we count down to the kickoff of our fourth annual UCI Giving Day on June 3, we are grateful now more than ever for our community of research heroes and supporters. The past few months have been challenging in unprecedented ways, yet we have seen th…
COVID-19 has introduced tremendous uncertainty into our lives. It has made life challenging for many, none more than families facing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. Yet, one certainty remains – brain diseases will devastate our increasingly older population…unless researchers find solutions. UCI MIND remains focused on these efforts. To support the scientists, students, and programs across our great university, UCI has decided to move forward with the scheduled UCI Giving Day coming up on Wednesday, June 3rd. While we recognize that the current crisis may prevent some from getting involved, all who are able are invited to join us on Giving Day. This…
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In March, the UCI Medical Center became the first hospital in Orange County to provide COVID-19 testing. In this episode of the UCI Podcast Video Series, UCI MIND faculty member Dr. Ed Monuki, chair of pathology who leads UCI Health’s testing efforts…
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Dear Friends of UCI MIND, Since writing my last message for our Winter 2020 issue, we have all had our worlds turned upside down by COVID-19. At UCI MIND, we have faced challenges and have had to temporarily adapt our research programs. But, I know these challenges pale in comparison to those faced by members of our community. I’m especially concerned about the additional challenges faced by caregivers of people living with dementia, as well as the social isolation physical distancing can bring to older people who are living alone. We are eager to help any way we are…
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Dr. Karen Edwards is Professor and Chair of the UCI Department of Epidemiology. Her primary research focus is in genetic epidemiology and the use of multivariate approaches to define phenotypes for complex diseases. Dr. Edwards’ genetic epidemiology research covers a broad range of conditions, including diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, melanoma and Parkinson’s Disease. She also studies interactions between environmental factors (particularly diet) and genetic susceptibility (Gene x environment interactions) and several interdisciplinary projects that focus on the ethical, legal or social implications of genomics and applications to clinical and public health practice. Dr. Edwards received a MS in Nutrition…
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Q&A with UCI MIND Faculty Member, Daniel L. Gillen, PhD, Professor and Chair of Statistics, Professor of Public Health and Epidemiology at UCI. Dr. Gillen serves on national and international Data Safety and Monitoring Boards evaluating the safety of ongoing clinical trials, and he has participated on multiple FDA advisory panels that are instrumental in deciding which drugs get approved and which do not. What exactly is a clinical trial? Gillen: A clinical trial, broadly speaking, is a designed experiment to test and assess an intervention in a human population. We generally think of trials in terms of the phases…
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COVID-19 has impacted every facet of life, including fundraising for the fight against Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD). The UCI MIND donor community includes caregivers dealing with even more daily stress, business owners who are struggling to pay their employees, parents who have become home school teachers, and philanthropists who have redirected their giving during this unprecedented time to help those most vulnerable and on the front lines of caring for people with COVID-19. Though the recovery from COVID-19 will take time, our mission to rid the world of ADRD through cutting-edge research remains a priority. We know many…
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The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted all of us on personal and professional levels. Here, we compiled sentiments from blogs posted by UCI MIND researchers and advocates during quarantine:
The post Researchers & advocates share messages of hope app…
The COVID-19 pandemic has made life challenging for many, none more than families facing Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. News media reports provide a daily reminder of the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on American nursing homes, where many people with dementia reside and receive care. In the home, people with dementia may have difficulty adhering to safer-at-home guidelines and other public health recommendations to protect themselves and others from infection. And of course, quarantine has placed additional burdens on caregivers, who are having to adapt to a new way of living and managing care that can feel isolating and overwhelming….
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Jamie Kamel (left) is an 8th Grader at Corona del Mar Middle School who is interested in genetics research and CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) technology. As part of service credit for Boy Scouts, he interviewed Amanda McQuade, REMIND Co-Chair and Doctoral Candidate, to learn about progress in Alzheimer’s research from the perspective of an up-and-coming scientist: Kamel: How did you become interested in Alzheimer’s disease? How did you get where you are today? McQuade: When I was young, I didn’t know I wanted to study Alzheimer’s disease. I first became interested in genetics and biology when I went to a…
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UCI MIND faculty member Masashi Kitazawa, PhD comments for Scientific American: “In a field where scientists have spent decades focused on genetics and the buildup of damaged protein fragments called beta-amyloid as causes of the disease…now many experts agree that air pollution plays a major role. This assessment is echoed by Masashi Kitazawa, a toxicologist at the University of California, Irvine, and an expert on environmental toxins. “Genetics is huge in Alzheimer’s research, and for years almost no one wanted to look beyond genes,” he says. “But in the past three or four years the number of papers linking air pollution and cognitive decline…
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Hear UCI MIND faculty member and Chair of the UCI Department of Epidemiology, Dr. Karen Edwards, lecture on “Disease Detectives: COVID-19 and Contact Tracing” this Thursday, May 21, 2020 at 12:30 PM. Register here > About Dr. Edwards: Dr. Karen Edwards is Professor and Chair of the UCI Department of Epidemiology. Her primary research focus is in genetic epidemiology and the use of multivariate approaches to define phenotypes for complex diseases. Dr. Edwards’ genetic epidemiology research covers a broad range of conditions, including diabetes, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, melanoma and Parkinson’s Disease. She also studies interactions between environmental factors (particularly…
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Unique Considerations for Public Health Communities in Various Settings COVID-19 and dementia present unique considerations for public health professionals in a variety of different settings. The livecast series focuses on three settings: Homes and Community-Based Settings, Emergency Departments and Hospitals, and Long-term Care Facilities. Please Register for each Livecast Separately Dementia Vulnerabilities in Homes and Around the Community Monday, May 18 from 1:00 to 1:30 p.m. ET REGISTER Dementia Challenges in Emergency Departments and Hospitals Monday, May 18 from 2:00 to 2:30 p.m. ET REGISTER Dementia Vulnerabilities in Long-Term Care Settings Tuesday, May 19 from 3:00…
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UCI Health will initiate a clinical study of a drug to treat critically ill COVID-19 patients who face a high mortality rate because of acute inflammation that fills their lungs with fluid, a grave condition that even mechanical ventilation cannot improve. Aviptadil, which has a 20-year history of use in human clinical trials for lung ailments, will be employed in a phase 2b/3 clinical study of COVID-19 patients suffering from acute respiratory distress syndrome, a primary cause of coronavirus-induced death. Read more here >
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Irvine, CA – May 12, 2020 – A team of researchers from the University of California, Irvine and San Diego have been awarded $3.8 million by the National Institute on Aging to conduct an epigenomic analysis of neural circuits in the brain. By revealing molecular changes that occur during the course of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the team hopes to identify new therapeutic targets and molecular biomarkers for early detection and better treatment. The interdisciplinary research team is led by multiple principal investigators, including Xiangmin Xu, PhD, a professor of anatomy and neurobiology and director of the Center for Neural Circuit…
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