Alzheimer's Disease Fact Sheet

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Alzheimer's Disease

  A slice through a rat brain showing cells of the hippocampus, a region affected by Alzheimer's Disease (Frank LaFerla at the
University of California, Irvine)

CIRM funds many projects seeking to better understand the origins of Alzheimer's disease and to translate those discoveries into new therapies. One of these projects received an Early Translational Award to move basic laboratory discoveries toward new therapies.

If you want to learn more about CIRM funding decisions or make a comment directly to our board, join us at a public meeting. You can find agendas for upcoming public meetings on our meetings page.

Learn more about stem cell research:
Stem Cell Basics Primer | Stem Cell Videos | What We Fund

Find clinical trials:
CIRM does not track stem cell clinical trials. If you or a family member is interested in participating in a clinical trial, please see the national trial database to find a trial near you: clinicaltrials.gov

Description

Because Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) affects a large number of different cells in the brain, the disease was not considered a major target for stem cell research – at least in its early days. However, in the past few years, scientists have discovered that stem cells have the power to improve brain function not only by replacing lost cells, but also by promoting the survival and function of existing brain cells.

In 2009, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, funded by CIRM, took neural stem cells from newborn normal mice and transplanted them into the brains of mice genetically engineered to have Alzheimer’s Disease. The study showed that the transplanted neural stem cells reversed spatial learning and memory deficits in the older mice. This was achieved through the growth of new synapses in surrounding brain tissue, triggered by a growth factor secreted by the stem cells called BDNF.

According to Frank LaFerla, Director of UCI’s Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders, the factors produced by the stem cells were essentially producing “fertilizer for the brain” allowing the mice to perform significantly better on memory tests a month after the stem cells were injected.

In other CIRM-funded research, Dr Larry Goldstein from UC San Diego, and his team are using re-programmed adult cells, so-called induced pluripotent stem cells or IPSCs, to generate human neuronal models of hereditary Alzheimer’s Disease.

A Howard Hughes Medical Investigator and director of the UCSD Stem Cell Program, Dr Goldstein is working with Dr Gene Yeo, assistant professor and member of the UCSD’s Institute for Genomic Medicine, to develop a cost-effective method of generating tens to hundreds of these hIPSC lines from human patients. These lines – as well as being key to understanding the disease - will also be used for finding and testing new drugs for the treatment of AD.

“Many diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, are thought to have a genetic basis. Identifying how this genetic variation contributes to disease susceptibility and drug response will require hIPSC lines from many patients,” said Goldstein.

He added that currently such hIPSC generation is bottlenecked due to the high cost and labor intensive nature of such work. “If successful, our project will lead to breakthroughs in understanding disease and more cost-effective development of better therapies.”

CIRM is also funding two other groups whose work is aimed specifically at researching different aspects of AD. These include: research at the UC San Diego looking at the generation of forebrain neurons from human embryonic stem cells and studies at the UC Riverside to develop a vaccine made of embryonic stem cells engineered to trigger immune cells that have been shown, in mice with AD to improve cognitive function.
 

Neural Stem Cells Reverse Alzheimer's-Like Symptoms in Mice

 

CIRM Grants Targeting Alzheimer's Disease

Grant Title Total Funds
A CIRM Disease Team to Develop Allopregnanolone for Prevention and Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease $107,989
Neuroprotection to treat Alzheimer's: a new paradigm using human central nervous system cells $98,050
Developing a method for rapid identification of high-quality disease specific hIPSC lines $1,816,157
Neural Stem Cells as a Developmental Candidate to Treat Alzheimer Disease $3,599,997
Development of human ES cell lines as a model system for Alzheimer disease drug discovery $492,750
Generation of forebrain neurons from human embryonic stem cells $612,075
ES-Derived Cells for the Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease $2,120,833
Using Human Embryonic Stem Cells to Understand and to Develop New Therapies for Alzheimer's Disease $2,512,664

CIRM Alzheimer's Disease Videos

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