$80M Alzheimer's Project Launched
By VICKI SMITH - Associated Press Writer
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - Dec13, 1999 - West Virginia University
and Johns Hopkins are joining to operate what they call the world's
only
major research center devoted to Alzheimer's disease and other brain
and memory disorders.
The $80 million Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute,
named after the late mother of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., will
be housed on the WVU campus and bring together the world's top
researchers in memory and cognition, the schools announced Monday.
It will be led by Dr. Daniel Alkon, a 29-year veteran of the
National Institute of Health and a medical director in the U.S.
Public Health Service.
Alkon and his colleagues have developed a new model of how
Alzheimer's, at its earliest stage, causes molecular changes in
brain cells. Their discovery may lead to new ways to diagnose and
treat the disease.
WVU pledged $10 mi the institute and $20 million
will come from private sources, Rockefeller said. The West Virginia
Economic Development Authority will contribute $3 million and the
remaining $47 million will be raised in research grants,
public-private partnerships and donations, he said.
Johns Hopkins will exchange researchers, faculty and students
with WVU, and also will conduct research at its campus in
Montgomery County, Md.
Rockefeller's mother died of Alzheimer's in 1992 at age 83.
``Our family was helpless as my mother virtually disintegrated
before our eyes,'' the senator said.
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Judith Richards, London, Ontario, Canada
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