Contact:
Stacey Harris
American Federation for Aging Research
(212) 703-9977 or info@afar.org

GE Healthcare Supports Early-Career Scientists Studying the Aging Brain

NEW YORK-- Four neuroscientists were awarded the first AFAR-NYAS-GE Healthcare Neuroimaging Prize for Junior Investigators. The award, which was presented at the Imaging and the Aging Brain conference and sponsored by the American Federation for Aging Research and the New York Academy of Sciences, was established by GE Healthcare as a way to support and recognize outstanding academic and scientific accomplishments in the area of neuroimaging. The meeting took place on May 16 and 17 at NYU's Kimmel Center in New York City.

Recipients of the $1,500 award include:

Juebin Huang, M.D., Ph.D., University Hospital of Cleveland
Case Western Reserve University
Diffusion Tensor Imaging of Normal Appearing White Matter and its Correlation with Cognitive Functioning in MCI and AD

Bonita L. Marks, PhD, Duke University Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development
Role of Aerobic Fitness and Aging on Cerebral White Matter Integrity

Grace E. Stutzmann, PhD, Rosalind Franklin University / The Chicago Medical School
Enhanced Intracellular Calcium Release Results from Upregulated Ryanodine Receptors in Mutant PS1-Expressing Alzheimer Mouse Models

Marc Weisskopf, PhD, ScD, Harvard School of Public Health
Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy in the Neurologic Assessment of Adult Lead Poisoning

"Given the limited funding streams available to young researchers today, GE's generosity helps the next generation of neuroscientists continue to advance and refine imaging techniques that will allow us to better identify and treat age-related brain diseases at the earliest possible stages," said Stephanie Lederman, executive director of the American Federation for Aging Research.

"GE Healthcare is proud to help early-career scientists further their careers and the field of imaging," said Dr. Jean-Luc Vanderheyden, global molecular imaging leader at GE Healthcare. "Imaging science has been at the forefront of helping us understand how the brain works, providing a non-invasive means to help detect alterations in brain function. It is through support of the next generation of scientists that we will gain an even greater knowledge of the brain's workings," he added.

Full program information about the conference can be found at www.nyas.org/ebriefreps/splash.asp?intEbriefID=508.

The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support biomedical research on aging. It is devoted to creating the knowledge that all of us need to live healthy, productive, and independent lives. Since 1981, AFAR has awarded nearly $113 million to close to 2,500 talented scientists as part of its broad-based series of grant programs. Its work has led to significant advances in our understanding of the aging process, age-related diseases, and healthy aging practices. AFAR communicates news of these innovations through its organizational web site www.afar.org, and educational web sites Infoaging (www.infoaging.org) and Health Compass (www.healthcompass.org).

Founded in 1817, the New York Academy of Sciences is an independent nonprofit organization of more than 24,000 members worldwide dedicated to serving science, technology, and society. Visit our Webby Award-winning website at www.nyas.org.

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, and biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies is helping clinicians around the world re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, inform and treat disease, so their patients can live their lives to the fullest.

GE Healthcare's broad range of products and services enable healthcare providers to better diagnose and treat cancer, heart disease, neurological diseases, and other conditions earlier. Our vision for the future is to enable a new "early health" model of care focused on earlier diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and disease prevention.

Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $15 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 43,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com