Research Advancing Kentucky: Transforming aging and brain health
Researchers at the University of Kentucky play an important role in advancing the health, well-being and future of our Commonwealth.
Much of that work is done with support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). That support allows our researchers to find answers to many of the critical health issues facing Kentuckians.
Linda Van Eldik, Ph.D., is the director of the UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and a professor of neurology in the UK College of Medicine.
An integral part of Sanders-Brown is the UK Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (ADRC) — one of the original 10 centers funded by the NIH’s National Institute on Aging (NIA).
Together, Sanders-Brown and the ADRC are one of the nation’s leading centers for research, education and clinical care focused on aging and age-related brain diseases, particularly Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. The center’s research contributions on these diseases are world renowned.
“NIH funding has allowed Sanders-Brown scientists to define risk factors and new biomarkers for dementia, explore the causes and develop treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias, and rapidly move new discoveries into clinical trials for individuals at all stages of cognitive impairment,” said Van Eldik. “We are at an exciting time in dementia research, with the promise of personalized therapy on the horizon. My hope is our work will transform Kentuckians’ lives for the better.”
Van Eldik is an internationally recognized researcher whose NIA-funded work focuses on the molecular and cellular mechanisms of neuroinflammation in Alzheimer’s disease and the development of novel targeted therapeutics.
Van Eldik and other members of the research community shared the importance of NIH-funded research at UK in this video series from Research Communications.
Learn more about each featured researcher.
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