MUST READS

A May 14, 2015 Forbes article reported that “Three former top researchers at Genentech…have raised $217 million in venture capital to start a new company, Denali Therapeutics, focused on treating and curing neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, ALS, and Parkinson’s.” According to the article, “The company is named after the tallest mountain in North America. “For me it means an inspiring challenge,” says Watts. “We wanted a name that was recognizable that represents a huge unmet need.” To climb this particular mountain, Watts says that Denali will be avoiding already crowded areas in the development of drugs for diseases like Alzheimer’s. For instance, companies including Biogen, Eli Lilly , Merck, and Genentech are all trying to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s with drugs that block a substance called beta amyloid, which is present in tangles in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. Watts says Denali won’t pile in.”

A May 13, 2015 Atlanta Black Star article profiled B. Smith’s efforts to engage minorities in clinical trials to improve research. According to the article, “Stigmas in the Black community and a general mistrust of medical institutions have kept many people from seeking professional help even when they show early signs of having the illness. With so few Black people seeking medical attention or volunteering to become a part of clinical trials, B. Smith and her husband, Dan Gasby, are concerned that there isn’t enough information available to completely understand Alzheimer’s impact on Black people. “The big thing that Barbara and I talk about is that we need more Black people to take a chance on being a part of the drug trial movement,” Gasby told The Huffington Post. “Because if we don’t get this right and get the right medicines, our kids and our grandkids — 30, 40, 50 years from now, while groups may have figured out how to combat or change this — they could still be at a disadvantage because they don’t have the right sampling and representation.” There is a clear lack of Black participants in clinical trials, but it’s generally believed to be a result of a troubling history that the community has had with such research.”

POLICY AND REGULATION 

A May 13, 2015 National Journal article reported on differences in the House and Senate approaches to speeding biomedical innovation. According to the article, “The amount of funding for the NIH is a sticking point. The House draft released Wednesday provides $10 billion of mandatory funding—$2 billion a year for five years—to the NIH Innovation Fund, as well as a reauthorization of discretionary funding. "Two billion dollars a year for five years is certainly better than nothing, but let's not pretend that a small temporary investment that falls billions of dollars short of what we're going to need to do the job—there is a gaping hole in our NIH budget and we need a serious plan to fix it," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren at last week's Senate hearing on precision medicine. "Whatever we do, this committee has to get serious about medical innovation and that means we have to do better than the House proposal on this."Alexander said that although it'll have to be handled by the Appropriations Committee, he "would like to see more money for the National Institutes of Health." It's also unclear the degree to which the House and Senate bills will differ and the scope of the Senate bill.”

REGIONAL 

A May 13, 2015 MTPR.org article reported that that the hot topic at Montana’s Governor’s Conference on Aging was Alzheimer’s. According to the article, “Dozens of health care providers and caregivers from across the state are meeting in Helena to discuss a wide range of topics related to older Americans, but roughly half the sessions at the conference deal in some way with the same subject: Alzheimer’s disease. As baby boomers grow older, the number of people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s is growing rapidly. And as Billings Nurse Betty Mullette says, the public health challenge this creates is even greater in a rural, sparsely-populated state like Montana.”

RESEARCH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

A May 13, 2015 Alzheimer’s News Today article reported that “Findings from a study recently conducted by neuropsychologist Christiane Möller as part of her doctoral work showed that patients with Alzheimer’s disease as well as behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia have large differences in their brains’ white matter.”