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Taub in the News

• The New York City Area Consortium on FTD Presents The New York City Frontotemporal Dementia Caregiver Conference
  November 20th, 2009 9:00am-4:30pm New York Academy of Medicine 1216 Fifth Ave. (103rd St.) NY, NY 10029
  More information and registration details
• Scott Small, Richard Mayeux, and other Taub researchers are featured in the HBO documentary series, The Alzheimer's Project beginning Sunday May 10, 2009. For a complete overview, please visit The Alzheimer's Project website
  
• Richard Mayeux, MD, MS, the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Epidemiology, director of the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center, and co-director of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, has received a five-year $5.6 million MERIT (Method To Extend Research In Time) award extension from the National Institute on Aging to continue studies of the genetic epidemiology of Alzheimer's disease in Hispanics. The project has been funded by the NIA since December 1998.
  
• Richard Mayeux, M.D., co-director of the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer's Disease and the Aging Brain, received the New York Academy of Medicine's 2008 John Stearns Award for Lifetime Achievement in Medicine.
  
• Elan Louis, M.D., M.S., professor of neurology and epidemiology, has been awarded a $500,000 extension of funding from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to continue work on studies of the brain metabolism and neuropathology of essential tremor.
  
• Richard Mayeux, M.D. and other researchers in the Taub Institute have found that a simple blood test to detect whether a person might develop Alzheimer's disease is within sight and could eventually help scientists in their quest toward reversing the disease's onset in those likely to develop the debilitating neurological condition. Read more here.
  
• Dr. Karen Duff and colleagues have found a process in the brain that may help explain the link between Alzheimer's and stroke. Findings are published in the March 13, 2008 issue of Neuron. Read more here.
  
• Dr. Richard Mayeux was awarded the 2007 Potamkin Prize by the American Academy of Neurology. He was honored for his work showing that Alzheimer's likely results from a complex mixture of altered genes and environmental factors.
  
• Jose A. Luchsinger, M.D., Florence Irving Assistant Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology, has received a one-year, $100,000 research grant from the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation for pilot testing of the diabetes drug Metformin as a preventive measure against cognitive decline. The foundation was established to expand programs initiated by the Institute for the Study of Aging, a foundation started by the family of cosmetics entrepreneur Estee Lauder.
  
• Christian Habeck has received two grants from the NIH. The first grant, from the National Institute of Aging, supports a 5 year longitudinal study acquiring cerebral blood-flow data of 20 Alzheimer's patients, 60 subjects with mild cognitive impairment and 20 healthy controls at 3 time points, using Arterial Spin Labeling Magnetic Resonance Imaging and sophisticated data-analytic techniques. The goal is to derive a marker for early Alzheimer's disease, and test its prognostic and diagnostic ability on the data of the mildly cognitively impaired patients.
  
  Funds from the second grant, from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, support a project that deals with multivariate mathematical approaches to neuroimaging analysis both in cognitive and clinical neuroscience. Multivariate techniques, which help identify networks of neurological activity across brain regions, will be compared and contrasted with univariate approaches, which do not provide information about region-by-region correlation in the brain. The funds will also be used to design a user-friendly multivariate analysis software package geared towards end-users in the neuroscience community who do not have special mathematical training.
  
• Ottavio Arancio, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pathology, has received a two-year, $376,000 grant from the National Institute on Aging. Funds will be used to develop and generate new molecules that enhance a specific signaling pathway in the synapse that Dr. Arancio has already identified, via mouse model, as dysfunctional during the plaque disposition process in Alzheimer's disease, disrupting both memory and brain plasticity.
  
• Adam M. Brickman, PhD, assistant professor of neuropsychology, has been awarded $770,000 over five years by the National Institute on Aging to study the impact of age on structural markers of pathology in the brain and how these age-related changes impact cognitive abilities in older adults.
  
• Dr. Nikolaos Scarmeas discussed Alzheimer's Disease and answered listeners' questions on the Leonard Lopate radio show. Listen to the archived broadcast here.
  
• Dr. Lucien Côté received the Distinguished Practioner Award by the Society of Practitioners at Columbia University Medical Center. The award recognizes Dr. Côté's outstanding clinical ability, his contributions to the development of clinical medicine within CUMC, and his serving as role model for countless numbers of clinicians and students who have worked and trained in this center, says Dr. Paul F. Simonelli, President of The Society of Practitioners.
  
• Dr. Scott Small's research reveals that physical exercise can improve memory. Read more here or in Newsweek's cover story.
  
• A team led by Dr. Richard Mayeux has identified a gene, SORL1, associated with the most common form of Alzheimer's Disease. The discovery opens a new pathway to explore treatments or preventions. Read more here.
  
• Researchers led by Dr. Jose Luchsinger have identified an association with folate or folic acid intake and a reduced risk of Alzheimer's Disease. Read more here.
  
• The Taub Institute was cited for Best Alzheimer's Care in New York by New York Magazine.
  
• Dr. Lloyd A. Greene has been elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science:
  
  Lloyd A. Greene, Ph.D., professor of pathology in the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, was cited for outstanding contributions to our understanding of neuronal development, differentiation, and survival, as well as service to the community through the development of model systems for studying these and other events.