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<p>Many researchers are finding that by the time a patient seeks treatment for symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, it’s often too late for the available drugs to have an effect. Boxer’s lab is studying very precise eye tracking methods to gauge mental fitness and identify cognitive decline decades before the first symptoms appear.</p>
<p>As one of the preeminent biomedical education and health sciences research institutions in the world, UCSF emerged early as a pioneer in the fight against AIDS. Today, three decades later, UCSF is working on multiple fronts to prevent, treat and stop the spread of the disease that has killed 33 million people worldwide.</p>
<p>Scientists are making great strides in figuring out how the human brain develops, which are leading to novel ideas about the causes of a range of brain disorders, and are raising hopes for the regeneration of tissue that is lost in diseases such as Alzheimer’s. </p>
Scientists at UCSF have pinpointed a reason older adults have a harder time multitasking than younger adults: they have more difficulty switching between tasks at the level of brain networks.
<p>Michael Weiner, who is a professor at UCSF and an investigator of the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), accepted the 2011 Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Award from the Alzheimer’s Association on behalf of the ADNI.</p>
Parkinson’s disease researcher Robert Nussbaum, a human geneticist and neuroscientist at UCSF, has been named to receive the prestigious Klaus Joachim Zülch Neuroscience Prize for 2011.
For patients with glioma, the most common primary brain tumor, new findings may explain why current therapies fail to eradicate the cancer. A UCSF-led team of scientists has identified for the first time that progenitor rather than neural stem cells underly a type of glioma called oligodendroglioma.
UCSF Nobel laureate Stanley Prusiner, MD, and colleagues have called for Congress to more than quadruple annual federal funding for Alzheimer’s research, saying that with a dedicated effort, there is a chance for a breakthrough against the disease by 2020.
<em>The Lancet</em> launched a special series on malaria elimination Oct. 29, led by the Global Health Group (GHG), a part of UCSF Global Health Sciences. The series included work by 36 authors worldwide, with guidance and support provided by a GHG-convened global advisory group of malaria experts, known as the Malaria Elimination Group.