Grantees in the News: Terrence Town, PhD, Designs a Rat Model of Alzheimer’s Disease

U.S. News and World Report reported on April 10 that Dr. Terrence Town had successfully created a transgenic rat model of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Dr. Town and his team genetically altered the rats to cause them to develop the same “specific pathologies” that human AD patients do. With this rat model, researchers will have a better shot of correctly identifying compounds and treatments that may one day be used to prevent or cure AD in humans. Dr. Town is a professor in the physiology and biophysics department at the Keck School of Medicine at the University…

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Richard W. Besdine, MD, on Dispels Myths about Palliative Care

AFAR Medical Officer Richard W. Besdine, MD, dispels misconceptions about palliative care in a blog post published on April 19 on the Huffington Post. Although the field of palliative care is growing rapidly, Dr. Besdine points out that many people remain misinformed about what exactly palliative care consists of and what its relationship to other courses of treatment and life expectancy is. Palliative care, Dr. Besdine writes, "“is simply good care."” Beeson Scholar R. Sean Morrison, MD, also contributes to the blog post. This is the twelfth post in Dr. Besdine’'s series on health care and aging on the AOL…

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AFAR Awards Dinner Celebrates Founder & Today’s Leaders

AFAR celebrated its 2012 Annual Awards Dinner, rescheduled from October due to Hurricane Sandy, on Monday, April 15, in New York City. Supporters, grantees, board members, and guests gathered for a tribute to the late George and Marie Doty, who were instrumental in the growth of AFAR as an organization. Brian Daniels, MD, senior vice president of Global Development and Medical Affairs at Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Michael Hodin, member at the Council on Foreign Relations and executive director of the Global Coalition on Aging, received Honorary AFAR Leadership Awards. Brian Daniels, MD, receives his award Michael Hodin, PhD, delivers his keynote address …

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AFAR Hosts Symposium on Optimal Protein Intake for Older Adults

On April 5, 2013, approximately fifty academics, clinicians, and representatives from government and industry gathered in New York for an AFAR symposium on optimal protein intake for older adults. Participants explored issues surrounding determining and facilitating optimal protein intake for older adults. The event was co-organized by a planning committee of Elena Volpi, MD, PhD, Daisy Emery Allen Distinguished Chair in Geriatric Medicine; Director, UTMB Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center; and Associate Director, Institute for Translational Sciences; University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, Rosemary Riley, PhD, LD, Senior Manager, Abbott Nutrition, and Bryan Helwig, PhD, Director of Nutrition Research,…

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Grantees in the News: Rajendra Apte, MD, PhD, Discovers Eye Drops to Treat Macular Degeneration

Rajendra S. Apte, MD, PhD, and colleagues have successfully prevented the growth of ocular blood vessels that cause macular degeneration, the leading cause of severe vision loss in older Americans, in mice by treating them with eye drops that lower cholesterol levels, reported The Telegraph on April 2. Dr. Apte’s results were published this month in the journal Cell Metabolism. This treatment also "showed promising effects" in cells from humans with macular degeneration. Dr. Apte is the Paul A. Cibis Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the…

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