Cure Alzheimer's Fund
| Founded | 2004 |
|---|---|
| Type | Foundation |
| Focus | Alzheimer's disease, medical research |
| Location | |
President and CEO | Meg Smith |
| Website | curealz |
Cure Alzheimer's Fund (CAF) is an American non-profit organization[1][2] based in Wellesley, Massachusetts. It supports and funds research focusing on understanding and potentially curing Alzheimer's disease utilizing a venture philanthropy approach, targeting research with the highest probability of preventing, slowing or reversing Alzheimer's disease.[3] The board of directors covers all operating costs so that all donations go entirely to research.
History[edit]
Cure Alzheimer's Fund (also known as Alzheimer's Disease Research Foundation) was founded in 2004 by Jeffrey Morby, Jacqui Morby, Henry McCance, and Phyllis Rappaport as a way to fund research of Alzheimer's disease. As of October 2023, the CEO is Meg Smith; Timothy Armour retired in October of 2023. For the full year 2022, Cure Alzheimer's Fund received $32 million through 24,000 donations. As of September 2023, the organization has funded 754 research projects, for more than $178 million.[4]
Events[edit]
Cure Alzheimer's Fund webinars throughout the calendar year. Recent presenters have included Drs. Rudy Tanzi, David Holtzman, Robert Vassar, and Erik Musiek
Research Areas of Focus[edit]
The Cure Alzheimer’s Fund mission—to fund research with the highest probability of preventing, slowing or reversing Alzheimer’s disease—involves four phases of research development. In each phase, specific categories of research have been identified for funding and are listed here.
As a non-profit, CureAlz provides grants to the world's leading researchers.[5]
All projects are based a strategy that includes key areas: foundational research, translational research, drug discovery and enabling technologies, and drug pre-clinical and clinical drug development and trials..
FOUNDATIONAL RESEARCH
The phase of foundational research includes the exploration of basic science and, for Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, the distribution of grants to those who are working to understand the facts of the disease. This includes the following subcategories:
- Genetic risk factors
- Epigenetic factors
- Biomarkers, diagnostics, and studies of risk and resilience
- Production of new cellular and animal models of Alzheimer’s disease
TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH
Translational research investigates how the facts of the disease provide opportunities for prevention and intervention. This includes studies of:
- Novel Alzheimer’s disease genes
- Amyloid precursor protein (APP) and amyloid beta
- Tau
- Apoliprotein E (APOE)
- Innate response in Alzheimer’s disease
- Alternative neurodegenerative pathways
DRUG DISCOVERY AND ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES
In the third phase of the research, potential therapeutics and approaches are sought to leverage the identified opportunities for intervention. This includes:
- Drug screening and lead drug evaluation projects
- Drug delivery and enabling technologies
PRECLINICAL AND CLINICAL DRUG DEVELOPMENT AND TRIALS
In the final stage of the preclinical research continuum, the identified candidate drugs and other therapies are further validated and optimized to maximize their chance of success in human clinical trials. These entail:
- Preclinical drug development
- Clinical trials
- Clinical trial design
Alzheimer's Genome Project[edit]
The Alzheimer's Genome Project[6] (AGP) is one of the CureAlz longest continued projects, with approximately $23,416,400 in funding from 2005 to 2022 for research directed by Rudolph Tanzi, Ph.D., of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital.[7] Its objective is to evaluate new Alzheimer's disease gene candidates for effects on Alzheimer's pathology and related biological pathways.[8] Phase I of the AGP focused on identifying all genes that contribute significant risk for Alzheimer's disease, thereby identifying more targets for the development of therapeutic interventions. Phase I was completed in 2008, with the identification of the novel Alzheimer's genes ADAM10, ATXN1, and CD33. Phase II of the AGP entails the functional analysis of these genes.
Phase III of the AGP focuses on the processing and sequencing of the complete genomes, then identifying all DNA variants in the genome that directly influence risk of Alzheimer's disease. From there, all of the biologically relevant genomes that may cause Alzheimer's can be identified and targeted for the development of therapeutic treatments. The Alzheimer's Genome Project was the largest single disease scan of all time[citation needed] and was considered one of the top ten medical breakthroughs in the world in 2008 by Time magazine.[9]
Charity assessment[edit]
The board of directors covers all operating costs so that all donations go entirely to research. Cure Alzheimer's Fund has a maximum rating of 4 stars (out of 4) from Charity Navigator for eleven consecutive years, with an overall score of 98.23/100 for financial, accountability and transparency.[10]
References[edit]
- ↑ GuideStar. [1] Archived 2015-02-15 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 26 March 2014.
- ↑ Better Business Bureau. [2] Archived 2014-05-04 at the Wayback Machine. Accessed 26 March 2014.
- ↑ Charity Navigator. [3]. Accessed 5 March 2014.
- ↑ Cure Alzheimer's Fund
- ↑ Tjan, Anthony (19 July 2009). "Can the VC Model Help Cure Alzheimer's?". HuffPost. Retrieved 19 October 2019.
- ↑ Cure Alzheimer's Fund. [4]. Accessed March 5, 2014.
- ↑ "Cure Alzheimer's Fund donates $5.4 million". Massachusetts General Hospital. October 26, 2012. Archived from the original on May 4, 2015. Retrieved October 19, 2019. Unknown parameter
|url-status=ignored (help) - ↑ Don Seifferi (May 3, 2013). "Betting on a cure for Alzheimer's". Boston Business Journal. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
- ↑ Alice Park (November 3, 2008). "The Top 10 Everything of 2008". Time. Retrieved October 19, 2019.
- ↑ "Charity Navigator - Rating for Cure Alzheimer's Fund". Charity Navigator.
External links[edit]
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