Green & Killiany to Receive ADNI Grant for Alzheimer’s Disease Research

Robert C. Green, MD, MPH, co-director, Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical & Research Program and professor of Neurology, Genetics and Epidemiology and Ron Killiany, PhD, director of the Center for Biomedical Imaging and associate professor of Anatomy and Neurobiology will be awarded an Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) grant. This GO grant is funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).  BU is one site sharing funding on this multi-center study, which is led overall by Michael Weiner of U. C. San Francisco. The grant will develop standards for obtaining longitudinal, multi-site MRI and PET data on patients with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and normal controls; generate a data repository that outlines longitudinal changes in brain structure and metabolism; and test a series of hypotheses based on clinical and biomarker data. Enrollment of subjects begins in April 2010.

Dr. Green’s research interests are in early and preclinical detection, treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease.  Dr. Green is Principal Investigator and Director of the REVEAL Study (Risk Evaluation and Education for Alzheimer’s disease) a multi-center project funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Institute on Aging to develop genetic risk assessment strategies for individuals at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. He also serves as associate director of the NIH-funded Alzheimer’s Disease Center.

Dr. Killiany’s research has been focused on exploring the relationship between brain structure and behavior. To a large extent, the studies have focused on the morphological changes that take place in the brain during aging and disease processes. In recent years, his work includes studies aimed at exploring the value of MRI in predicting which subjects will progress to develop cognitive decline of Alzheimer’s disease and which will remain cognitively stable.