Rotary Clubs From Three States Award Penn $250,00
Grant for Alzheimer's Research From Pocket Change
(Philadelphia,
PA) - Each week, Rotarians from clubs throughout North
Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia empty their pockets
of loose money in the hopes that their individual donations
will, collectively, bring about a different kind of
change. Recently, officials from Rotary Districts in
the three states awarded a research grant of $250,000
to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania
School of Medicine for their work on the prevention
of oxidative stress damage - 'brain rust' - present
in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease.
With the award of this grant, Rotarians
will have given over $850,000 since 2001 from their
Coins for Alzheimer's Research Trust (CART) fund for
the research and cure of Alzheimer's and Alzheimer's
related diseases. CART was begun by Roger Ackerman,
a Rotarian from Sumter, South Carolina.
"Funding from sources like the Rotarians
allow us to jumpstart scientific research on the many
targets that we think are the molecular pathways to
curing Alzheimer's," said John Trojanowski, MD, PhD,
Director of Penn's Alzheimer's Disease Center. "It is
remarkable that just a few citizens can band together
to recognize a need and, with deliberation and foresight,
deliver major awards on the level of a large foundation
or government agency."
According to Trojanowski, Penn received
the award primarily because of the work of Domenico
Pratico
, MD, Assistant Professor of Penn's Department
of Pharmacology. His work on isoprostanes, fatty acids
that are formed as the result of free radical damage,
have opened up a new avenue of promising research in
which drugs created to prevent oxidative stress may
halt Alzheimer's.
In addition to the presence of senile
plaques and neurofibrillary tangles, an Alzheimer's
disease brain exhibits evidence of extensive oxidative
damage. Scientific research in this area suggests that
oxidative damage or stress, like the effect of rust
caused by oxidation of metal, plays an early and important
role on Alzheimer's disease pathogenesis.
"We have shown that isoprostanes are increased
in specific brain regions of Alzheimer's disease, but
not in other neurodegenerative diseases," said Pratico.
" In Alzheimer's disease patients, their levels of oxidative
stress correlate with the severity of the disease. It
is plausible that, once formed in the brain, isoprostanes
could mediate the cellular responses of nerve cells
to oxidative stress/amyloid plaques."
Therefore, the Penn researchers propose
to study the functional role of blocking the effects
of isoprostanes in the initiation and progression of
Alzheimer's disease. This is a new approach to treating
Alzheimer's, one that could take advantage of existing
therapeutics designed to combat oxidative stress in
other parts of the body, such as thromboxane antagonists
that prevent oxidative damage in blood vessels.
"Funding is a real limiting factor, and
the Rotarians are indeed taking a visionary approach
in seeking out funding projects at the preliminary stages
of research," said Trojanowski. "While I cannot say
just how much it will cost to cure Alzheimer's, research
in the last decade has identified many compelling and
novel drug targets. And the faster we pursue each one
through increased investment in drug discovery, the
faster we will get to meaningful therapies."
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Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service. The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school.
The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $550 million awarded in the 2022 fiscal year. Home to a proud history of “firsts” in medicine, Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries and innovations that have shaped modern medicine, including recent breakthroughs such as CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.
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