UK assistant professor Jose Abisambra of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging received a $100,000 grant from the Alzheimer’s Association to study tau, a protein in the brain that changes abnormally as Alzheimer’s disease progresses in patients, according to an Oct. 8 press release from the Greater Kentucky and Southern Indiana chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association.

Abisambra’s research will investigate why tau changes and ultimately causes cell death as Alzheimer’s continues, according to the press release. The protein is connected to ribosomal damage, Abisambra said in the press release.

Understanding how tau causes neural damage and impairs memory will be crucial in developing necessary new therapeutic strategies, Abisambra added.

More than 167,000 people in Kentucky and Indiana are living with Alzheimer’s currently, according to the press release, and more than five million Americans have the disease.

Alzheimer’s is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, according to the press release, and kills more Americans than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined.

The New Investigator Research Grant is part of an attempt by the Alzheimer’s Association to increase the amount of researchers investigating Alzheimer’s by funding research early in their careers, said Teri Shirk, executive director of the Alzheimer’s Association of Greater Kentucky and Southern Indiana, in the press release.

To that end, she added, only researchers with less than 10 years of experience are eligible for New Investigator Research Grants.

The Alzheimer’s Association’s research grants attempt to fund research that will increase understanding of Alzheimer’s and improve treatment and care, according to the press release.

The Alzheimer’s Association has awarded more than $335 million to more than 2,250 projects since 1982, according to the press release.

STAFF REPORT