The University of Southern California (USC) recently was awarded a $25 million grant to explore the influences that help accelerate or protect against Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
The grant comes from the National Institute on Aging and will study the exposome – or all environmental factors and everything people are exposed to that can affect health outcomes – with a goal of understanding biological changes can lead to dementia.
The research effort is called the Gateway Exposome Coordinating Center (GECC) and will gather data and collaborate across multiple disciplines of research to identify just what aspects of environmental exposure impact dementia risk and how these risks could be lowered.
This builds off of research by USC that found exposure to pollution from small particles known as PM2.5 leads to cognitive changes.
“Understanding how these exposures impact health and contribute to Alzheimer’s disease is increasingly urgent as the global population ages,” said principal investigator Jinkook Lee, director of the program on global aging, health and policy at CESR. CESR is based at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
The research will also be aided by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), National Institutes of Health(NIH) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with collaboration being “crucial” for finding areas of focus shaping future environmental research, Lee said.
“Collaboration is a cornerstone of the GECC,” said David Knapp, a senior economist at CESR co-leading the project. “We are fostering consensus-building among researchers and stakeholders from diverse fields, ensuring a broad, inclusive approach to understanding the exposome’s role in dementia.”
The GECC effort also expands the Gateway to Global Aging Data, a longitudinal research project that has received $24.7 million from the National Institute on Aging. The ongoing research includes ongoing studies in 42 countries studying aging.
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