Supplement: University of Kentucky Alzheimer's Disease Core Center

There is a growing consensus in the field that the development of disease-modifying therapies may be most effective in individuals in the pre-symptomatic stages of AD (preclinical AD; pAD), that can only be detected through the use of antemortem biomarkers. Furthermore, increasing awareness of the complexity of mixed pathological disease states (currently diagnosed only at autopsy), demands the development and characterization of antemortem biomarkers that will allow definitive diagnoses and appropriately targeted disease-modifying strategies for such complex disease states. Antemortem biomarker collections in large, well-characterized, community-based, longitudinal cohorts of cognitively normal subjects, such as ours at the UK-ADC, are essential for scientific progress in these areas. The UK-ADC is well-recognized nationally in regards to contributions to major NIH/NIA initiatives such as NACC, ADGC, NCRAD, ADCS, and ADNI. Expanding our center through the development of a biomarker core will allow our continued contributions to these major initiatives, as well as allow support for our expanding clinical translational research efforts. We have already done much of the work (MRI, n=~1082; CSF, n=~252; Aâ-PET, n=~87); what we need is the support to make the data collected accessible to the greater scientific community. As described in our recent renewal, the Clinical, Biostatistics, and Neuropathology Cores of the UK-ADC have matured a protocol that leverages antemortem biomarker collections from UK-ADC affiliated studies through the development of a universal biomarker consent, standard NACC/ADNI collection procedures, bio-banking, cataloging, and distribution. Unfortunately, without a biomarker core, our current budget cannot support the infrastructure needed to leverage these critical assets. This proposal for the addition of a new core focuses on infrastructure support that has been severely limited by budget constraints that have not allowed us to support the costly antemortem biomarker collections that have risen in scientific importance. The support for our new biomarker core will allow us the increased infrastructure needed to support NIH/NIA initiatives and our researchers’ needs in the 21st century and beyond.