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Funding News - R21 Grant Applications for Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Discovery Sought

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The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), and the Institute for the Study of Aging (ISOA) invite R21 grant applications for the discovery, development, and preclinical testing of drugs to prevent and treat the cognitive impairment and behavioral symptoms of Alzheimer's disease (AD).*

AD is one of the most persistent and devastating dementing disorders of old age because it eventually leads to a complete loss of memory and the ability to function independently. In AD, connections among nerve cells are lost and specific neuronal populations die or are compromised, and aberrant proteins are formed in brain regions associated with memory and other symptoms of AD such as agitation and psychosis. At present the few treatments that are currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration for AD have demonstrated only modest effects in modifying the clinical symptoms for relatively short periods, and none has shown a clear effect on disease progression. Examples of areas of research interest include, but are not limited to: design, synthesis, and preclinical testing of compounds directed toward altering, modifying, or regulating the neuronal mechanisms associated with AD; the isolation, identification, characterization, synthesis, and preclinical testing of promising naturally occurring products; and development of novel delivery systems to target compounds to the brain, e.g., gene vectors, stem cells and other cell-based approaches, and protein and peptide delivery systems. For more information, potential applicants should contact Dr. Diane Murphy, Program Director, Neurodegeneration Cluster, NINDS, Neuroscience Center, 6001 Executive Boulevard, Room 2222, Bethesda, MD 20892; telephone: 301-496-5680; fax: 301-480-1080; e-mail: dm152o@nih.gov.

*For a more detailed description of this program announcement, please visit the NIH web site at: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAS-05-022.html.

This content has been adapted from the original NINDS Notes publication. For the most up-to-date funding information, please visit the Funding Opportunities section of the NINDS web site.  For the most recent information on NINDS studies, please visit the NINDS Patient Recruitment web site.