Alzheimer Disease Researchers Seek Volunteers
There have been many significant advances in the fight against Alzheimer disease thanks to the concerted efforts of teams of medical researchers. Dr. Michael Mullan is one of the foremost researchers into this frightening disease and he was an integral part of the team that made a breakthrough in identifying the genetic cause of this disease. Knowing one of the possible causes of this disease has brought the medical world one step closer to devising a cure for it. Today, sadly, there is no cure for this disease and a positive diagnosis for it is nothing short of a death sentence.
Educated in leading institutes in the United Kingdom, Dr. Michael Mullan leads a research institute in Sarasota, Florida and it is here, in the Roskamp Institute, that path breaking studies into this disease as well as other diseases of the brain are conducted. The breakthrough into Alzheimers Disease happened when researchers at Roskamp discovered certain mistakes in the amyloid gene which has been found to be connected with the onset of this disease. The accumulation of amyloid protein in the brain leads to its quick and irreversible degeneration.
Since Alzheimers is still a little understood disease, it is very important for the medical world to focus its efforts to study it in detail. This requires a great deal of money and thankfully, a great amount has been forthcoming from governmental bodies, industry and also private individuals. However, what researchers need very much is research subjects and this can only be done if large numbers of people participate in research studies. There are many clinical trials being conducted at any time and the common complaint from researchers is that they do not have sufficient numbers of subjects, both from families that have this disease as well as from ones that do not.
One has to recall that one of the initial successes against this disease came as a result of an Englishwoman, Carol Jennings, volunteering her family in to be research subjects since this family had an unusually high incidence of Alzheimer’s sufferers. This study began in 1988 and it lead to a better understanding of the disease. Even if a cure is still far away, this better knowledge of the disease has at least helped improve the quality of life of patients and delay their inevitable death by a few years.
With more than two decades of experience in the field of biotechnology and as the recipient of many government and private grants, Dr. Mullan is in a vantage position to come up with more breakthroughs against Alzheimer disease. However, the efforts at Roskamp Institute and other research facilities like it will come to naught unless they continue to get a lot of support from organizations and individuals alike.