On Monday, March 24, Charles Decarli received an order from the federal government to stop working in his national dementia study. As director of the University of California, the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center of Alzheimer financed the Federal of Davis, Decarli studies vascular risk factors, such as diabetes and hypertension, which contribute to 15 to 25 percent of dementia cases. These factors are little known, and there is no treatment approved by the Food and Medicines Administration to attack them.
Decarli had been anxious for weeks, since the Trump administration threatened to reduce the funds for the investigation he considered related to DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion). “This study has the word ‘diverse’ in its title, so it worried me a little that was perhaps a goal,” says Decarli. The vascular risk factors of dementia affect certain groups, such as blacks and Latin American, more than others. The study researchers, located in 28 sites in the USA, worked against a marked clock to register most of their participants in September.
Then the National Health Institutes told them their Subsid of almost $ 36 millionGranted during the first Trump administration, it had ended: the work “no longer performs the priorities of the agency” due to its base in the “artificial and non -scientific categories,” reads the letter. The team immediately hastened to determine what to do with the hundreds of thousands of blood samples waiting for the analysis and to notify the participants that their appointments had been canceled.
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After weeks of agitation, the NIH granted an appeal of Decarli and restored the projects of the project last Friday. “The analogy would be something like: you had a fire in your store. He did not destroy the store, but now you have to do an inventory, ask for new supplies, to paint the interior again … and I hope your customers return,” he says. At this time, Decarli fears that the team does not meet its registration objectives and will have to reassess the study.
The case illustrates the cascade effects on the scientific advances of even a temporary financing termination, delay or freezing. These interruptions are occurring in Alzheimer’s disease research centers (ADRC) throughout the country. Of the 35 centers financed by NIH, 14 As reported, hang at limbo Because your financing must expire on April 30, but it has not been renewed. These 14 centers include some that Maintain brain banks that were donated to science by people who suffered dementia after their death. As part of its sweep cuts directed to Columbia University, the Trump Ha administration As reported, revoked $ 3 million in subsidies to the ADRC itself of the University, which studies the causes of Alzheimer’s disease.
American scientist He spoke with Decarli about the effect that these financing interruptions will have in our understanding of the causes of dementia and the development of new treatments.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
What is the forecast in your study now that your financing has been restored?
Now I am in the way to save the study, that is the easiest way to say, because it is difficult to say that 1,700 people “the study has been canceled”, and then [say]”Return; it didn’t happen.” We may not meet our recruitment goals; In fact, it would go so far as to say that it is unlikely that we can meet our recruitment goals. Then we have to reassess the scientific side of things, because if we do not reach our goal, then we do not obtain the longitudinal effect [the measurement of change over time in participants’ health]So, we cannot see the changes we expected. So we get less return from investment. It is a challenge. We will fix ourselves with what we have.
But this has a domino effect that will last much longer than this event. This sends fear of the people who work in this study and in others.
What is happening in the other Alzheimer’s disease research centers?
All centers are reviewed in a three -year steady cycle. We are in the middle of one of those three -year cycles [for more than a dozen of the 35 research centers]. The reviews are completed, but no measures have been taken [by the NIH to renew the funding]. Then there are centers whose financing, technically, will end [on April 30]And yet they don’t know their status.
AND All other centers wonder: “What do I do? How will it be seen in a year?” It is like in the stock market: consistency is incredibly important for us to succeed in what we are doing.
How would I say that this uncertainty will affect the work that scientists are doing to discover the causes of dementia and find new treatments?
It can affect this work in different ways. First, certain research projects can never reach a good end. They are interrupted, they cannot return to the track and that work is not done. Second, our participants lose confidence in what we are doing because we cannot continue what we are doing reliably.
Third, future researchers, which [will one day] Do your own independent research …, you may not. They are those that contribute new ideas and innovations. You know, an old man as I will not have new and bright ideas. The true novel comes from young people. [For Alzheimer’s disease especially]We need to be looking for in other directions.
It also harms the unit when certain universities are selected for criticism and general financing cuts, such as Columbia, [the University of Pennsylvania]Harvard [University]Yale [University]”These have ADRC.” We have a network that achieves larger things that individual centers could achieve. But as in any network, like the brain, if the nodes break, potentially harms the entire network.
How would this damage to the net to the life of people translate? For example, dementia runs in my family, and I feel that there is a ticking clock for many of my loved ones. Will this affect us?
Interruptions delay discovery. We would hate that people succumb to a disease that could have been treated or prevented, if the investigation had continued. I take the cancer analogy: great progress has been made in 10 years with some diseases that killed hundreds of thousands of people before. Well, it’s the same. Dementia is killing hundreds of thousands of people. We would like to prevent that from happening, but the more barriers they show up, the longer it will take us there. We can still get there. But five, 10, 20 years could pass.
It will certainly delay innovation and creativity. You know, creativity blooms in a healthy environment. If I feel under attack, I know what I do: I retire to what I know best.
But one of the things I have hopes is that we can begin to understand the multitude of biological pathways that lead to dementia, and not only [those that are] focused on Alzheimer’s pathology. The more we understand and expand [our understanding of dementia in all of its forms]The better we will understand how the brain works and how to keep the brain healthy. In the end, he is helping people stay alive, right? Our Vision Declaration for our ADRC is “a lifetime of brain health for all.”
I do not know if I will live until the moment this happens, but the ultimate goal is to identify what our healthy brain maintains throughout our useful life and relieve dementia by understanding these mechanisms and develop precise methods to overcome them.
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