Alzheimer's Disease Fact Sheet

CIRM funds many projects seeking to better understand the origins of Alzheimer's disease and to translate those discoveries into 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

Stem cell research for Alzheimer's disease

Roughly five million people are living with Alzheimer’s disease in the U.S. today. Those people generally live much shorter lives and their medical expenses, combined with lost income for both them and their caregivers, exceeds $170 billion a year. Alzheimer’s disease is currently the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S. There are no drugs to treat the disease, although some do relieve symptoms.

One problem that has slowed new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease is the fact that no animal model truly mimics the disease. Drugs that have effectively treated animals with a form of Alzheimer’s haven’t worked in humans. What that means is that we need a better way of finding new drugs. California’s stem cell agency funds several awards to researchers who are creating stem cell models of the disease in a lab dish using cells from Alzheimer’s patients. They can then test drugs on those Alzheimer’s disease neurons to look for ones that eliminate symptoms of the disease. These models are the only way of testing drugs in actual human cells.

The agency also funds teams that are in the early stages of developing potential therapies using stem cells. Some groups are trying to mature embryonic stem cells into a cell type that can be transplanted into the brain to replace cells that are destroyed in the disease. Others are simply using stem cells as a way of delivering factors that appear to protect brain cells. One team is trying to use stem cells to clear out the protein that builds up and clogs neurons in Alzheimer’s patients.

Disease Team Award

Stem Cells Inc.

This team proposes to inject adult brain stem cells into the front section of the brain. They have shown in animal models that these cells produce chemicals that appear to help protect existing nerve cells. They plan to use this award to produce cells that meet the high standards needed to get FDA approval and to complete the testing required before they can begin clinical trials in people.

Read more about this project

CIRM Grants Targeting Alzheimer's Disease

Researcher name	Institution	Grant Title	Funding
Alexandra Capela	StemCells, Inc.	Restoration of memory in Alzheimer’s disease: a new paradigm using neural stem cell therapy	$20,000,000
Lawrence Goldstein	University of California, San Diego	Developing a method for rapid identification of high-quality disease specific hIPSC lines	$1,816,157
Frank LaFerla	University of California, Irvine	Development of human ES cell lines as a model system for Alzheimer disease drug discovery	$492,750
Lawrence Goldstein	University of California, San Diego	Identifying Drugs for Alzheimer's Disease with Human Neurons Made From Human IPS cells	$1,857,600
David Schubert	The Salk Institute for Biological Studies	Stem cell based small molecule therapy for Alzheimer's disease	$1,673,757
Roberta Brinton	University of Southern California	A CIRM Disease Team to Develop Allopregnanolone for Prevention and Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease	$107,989
Alexandra Capela	StemCells, Inc.	Neuroprotection to treat Alzheimer's: a new paradigm using human central nervous system cells	$98,050
			Total: $26,046,303.00