Newswise — Alzheimer imaging aficionados thronged to back-to-back meetings held recently in Seattle for a preview of the latest data from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI). Launched in the fall of 2004 and set to conclude next year, the $64-million ADNI is comparing imaging methods and fluid biomarkers in the same set of people to determine which measures can best predict and track Alzheimer-disease clinical changes over time. The project is approaching the homestretch of data collection. By the fall of 2010, ADNI scientists will have collected three years of longitudinal data from more than 800 participants (about 200 normal, 400 with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and 200 with Alzheimer disease) at 59 U.S. and Canadian sites. The Seattle meetings featured preliminary analysis of the one-year data.
By and large, ADNI has helped identify a number of precise, clinically meaningful biomarkers that should be able to stand in for slower-to-budge cognitive measures, slashing time and cost from AD drug trials. "I think that ADNI is not only on track for meeting the goals we set out with, but we've added so many additional goals," said principal investigator Michael Weiner, University of California, San Francisco, in a post-meeting phone conversation with this reporter. "The whole project has become more ambitious and is having more impact."
Visit the Alzforum web site for a detailed account of the meetings.http://www.alzforum.org/new/detail.asp?id=2135
The Alzheimer Research Forum (www.alzforum.org), founded in 1996, is the web's most dynamic scientific community dedicated to understanding Alzheimer disease and related disorders. Access to the web site is free to all. The Forum's editorial priorities are as diverse as the needs of the research community. The web site reports on the latest scientific findings, from basic research to clinical trials; creates and maintains public databases of essential research data and reagents; and produces discussion forums to promote debate, speed the dissemination of new ideas, and break down barriers across the numerous disciplines that can contribute to the global effort to cure Alzheimer's disease.
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