2016 funding results
The Alzheimer Society Research Program (ASRP) celebrates 28 years of funding Canadian researchers in the field of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias. We are pleased to announce the following 2016 ASRP grants and awards.
Aetiology (studying the cause of dementia)
Richard LeDuc
University of Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC
Project: Characterization of GPR3 as a novel pharmacological target for Alzheimer’s disease
$150,000 - Biomedical, Research Grant
"Our project is specifically aimed at identifying a novel compound targeting a receptor involved in producing the harmful A beta peptide observed in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients."
Caregiver support
Danielle Alcock
University of Western Ontario, London, ON
Project: Oral narratives of female indigenous caregivers for loved ones diagnosed with alcohol-related dementia
$66,000 - Quality of Life, Doctoral Award
“The impact that my research will have on individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias is that supporting caregivers is imperative to their loved ones’ well being and health since they are the primary caregivers, support system and advocates.”
Jennifer Baumbusch
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC
Project: Inclusion of families of older adults with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias in residential long-term care: A knowledge translation & exchange study
$116,280 - Quality of Life, Research Grant
“We will create a workshop series that provides education, networking and peer support for families of individuals with Alzheimer disease and other dementias who live in long-term care facilities.”
Kristine Newman
Ryerson University, Toronto, ON
Project: Detection of agitation in people with dementia using multimodal sensors: Towards a predictive system
$120,000 - Quality of Life, Research Grant
“It is anticipated that the predictive system will be able to detect subtle changes and alert caregivers of the development of agitation by persons with dementia thus person-centred non-pharmacological interventions can be used earlier and for more positive impact.”
Developing treatments
Hsiao-Huei Chen
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON
Project: PTP1B inhibition targeting anxiety and Alzheimer's disease progression
$150,000 - Biomedical, Research Grant
“The drug we are testing to improve anxiety in Alzheimer’s disease is already undergoing clinical trials for other purposes, so if our research in mice shows promise, we hope to translate these findings rapidly to clinical applications.”
Laura Hamilton
University of Montreal, Montreal, QC
Project: Triggers and behavioural consequences of elevated oleic acid in the Alzheimer's disease brain
$100,000 - Biomedical, Postdoctoral Award
Recipient of the Firefly Spark Award
"This study will fill in important gaps in our understanding of the role of lipids in underlying the cognitive deficits seen in Alzheimer's disease and provide important clues as to if this drug can be useful for intervention and/or prevention of cognitive deficits in patients with Alzheimer's disease."
Étienne Hébert-Chatelain
University of Moncton, Moncton, NB
Project: Role of mitochondrial c-Src kinase in Alzheimer's disease
$225,000 - Biomedical, Research Grant
This project is jointly funded by the ASRP, the Brain Canada New Investigator Grant and the New Brunswick Health Research Foundation
“This innovative research program will lead to the generation of new tools useful for early diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, thus improving outcomes for people with this pathology and other neurodegenerative diseases”
Marco Antonio Maximo Prado
University of Western Ontario, London, ON
Project: Mechanisms of anti-cholinergic activity mediated dementia and Alzheimer's pathology
$149,128 - Biomedical, Research Grant
“Our funded work will address the mechanisms by which deficient cholinergic circuits contribute to dementia. We will test new ways to correct the consequences of cholinergic deficiency as promising therapeutic approaches.”
Marine Tournissac
Laval University, Quebec City, QC
Project: Is there a thermoregulation deficit in Alzheimer’s disease?
$66,000 - Biomedical, Doctoral Award
“We hope that our intervention will be beneficial and lead to the development of a new treatment to help people with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.”
Diagnosis and detection
Iva Kristl Brunec
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Project: Investigating the hippocampal role in encoding temporal information as a possible early indicator of Alzheimer’s disease
$66,000 - Biomedical, Doctoral Award
“I aim to investigate how memories about the duration of individual events and their order are created in healthy brains, particularly in the context of navigation, and crucially, how this ability changes in those at risk for dementia.”
Myeong Jin Ju
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC
Project: Label-free Alzheimer's disease biomarkers in the retina
$83,000 - Biomedical Research Grant
“My research outcome will establish retinal imaging as a fast, non-invasive, and cost effective method for earlier diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.”
Simon Duchesne
Laval University, Quebec City, QC
Project: Multi-contrast MRI-derived brain aging trajectories: From cognitive health to dementia
$150,000 - Biomedical, Research Grant
“We want to turn MRI into an investigation tool able to detect the signature of Alzheimer's disease decades before diagnosis."
Frédérique Escudier
University of Montreal, Montreal, QC
Project: Judgement impairment and its neuroanatomical correlates in neurodegenerative diseases with frontal involvement
$83,000 - Quality of Life, Postdoctoral Award
“This research aims to allow early identification of patients at risk of making ill-advised decisions based on their cognitive and brain scans profiles, and to develop tools to help them make more informed decisions in their daily life, which has the potential to improve their autonomy.”
Holly A. Tuokko
University of Victoria, Victoria, BC
Project: The development of comparison standards for the cognitive measures employed in Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging
$239,900 - Quality of Life, Research Grant
This project is jointly funded by the ASRP and the Pacific Alzheimer Research Foundation
“It is anticipated that having well-developed Canadian standards for the identification of memory and thinking problems will result in greater accuracy in the early identification of dementias including Alzheimer’s disease.”
Sylvia Villeneuve
McGill University, Montreal, QC
Project: Tracking Alzheimer's disease progression at the earliest stages: A multimodal project
$225,000 - Biomedical, Research Grant
This project is jointly funded by the ASRP and the Brain Canada New Investigator Grant
“My ultimate goal is to help find a way to stop or slow down the disease progression when individual are still cognitively normal.”
Rahel Rabi
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON
Project: Stroop event-related potentials as neurocognitive markers for amnestic mild cognitive impairment
$100,000 - Quality of Life, Rawlinson Post-Doctoral Award
This project is funded by the Rawlinson Family
“Identifying the cognitive biomarkers of MCI associated with inhibitory control through the use of ERPs will assist with early and accurate diagnosis of MCI, inform treatment of MCI, and inform when is the optimal time of day to test individuals with MCI and manage their symptoms.”
Improving care and support for people living with dementia
Stephanie Chamberlain
University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB
Project: Unrepresented older adults: The impact of public guardianship on resident health and care needs in long-term care
$66,000 - Quality of Life, Doctoral Award
This project is jointly funded by Revera and ASRP
“This research project will describe care needs, health outcomes and approximate the prevalence of older adults under guardianship in LTC, ultimately contributing to the development of interventions and organizational policies to improve care to this group that is often marginalized, and highly vulnerable.”
Christine Jonas-Simpson
York University, Toronto, ON
Project: Musical engagement and relational dementia care: Evaluating knowledge translation through research-based documentary
$118,901 - Quality of Life, Research Grant
“The documentaries produced from this research will provide visual examples of relational concepts translated into practice through an innovative music curriculum, with enormous potential to strengthen understanding and actions that are consistent with this philosophy, and which can lead to the betterment of care and quality of life for persons living with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias and their care partners.”
Edeltraut Kröger
Laval University, Quebec City, QC
Project: Deprescribing inappropriate medication in residents suffering from severe dementia: OptimaMed long term care, a demonstration project
$119,726 - Quality of Life, Research Grant
“Many medications which seniors with severe Alzheimer’s continue to take may be dangerous, can cause major discomfort and no longer fit with the goal of comfort care. OptimaMed-LTC aims at reducing this heavy medication load to increase the seniors’ overall quality of life.”
Sharon Koehn
Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC
Project: Building trust to facilitate access to dementia care for immigrant older adults: The role of the multicultural services sector
$119,623 - Quality of Life, Research Grant
“Our research will identify strategies that can foster relationships of trust that in turn build opportunities for access for immigrant consumers of dementia-related services to multicultural agencies and from the latter to formal dementia support systems.”
Risk and prevention
Nathalie Nilsson
McGill University, Montreal, QC
Project: Protection in Alzheimer's disease: The mechanism of a genetic variant in the HMGCR gene
$75,000 - Biomedical, Doctoral Award
This project is jointly funded by the ASRP and the CCNA
“This project will increase our understanding of how protection can be achieved in Alzheimer’s disease and potentially provide evidence for a disease modifying strategy using statins.”
Paula Adler
University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON
Project: Exploring the role of the circadian clock in Alzheimer’s disease
$66,000 - Biomedical, Doctoral Award
"This research will increase our understanding of the link between the circadian system and Alzheimer’s disease, and potentially provide insight into a novel therapeutic strategy for this disease."
Yanbo Yang
St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, ON
Project: Examining the role of phosphatidylinositol phosphate kinase homolog in phosphatidylinositol 4,5-biphosphate homeostasis and its impact on beta amyloid production and clearance
$75,000 - Biomedical, Doctoral Award
“Results from my research could provide new prevention strategies and improved therapies of Alzheimer’s disease.”
Emmanuel Planel
Laval University, Quebec City, QC
Project: Effects of perioperative factors on tau pathogenesis
$145,000 - Biomedical, Research Grant
“Our study will provide key data on the safety of anesthetics for patients, and will help define the risks of surgical interventions on the development of Alzheimer's disease in the elderly.”
Lisa Marie Munter
McGill University, Montreal, QC
Project: Peripheral and central pathways of cholesterol-induced Alzheimer's disease pathology
$150,000 - Biomedical, Research Grant
“If we prove our hypotheses, we will suggest to repurpose existing drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease, which may be a rare opportunity to develop a fast and effective treatment.”
Margaret Fahnestock
McMaster University, Hamilton, ON
Project: Mechanism of Tau-induced BDNF down-regulation in Alzheimer's disease
$150,000 - Biomedical, Research Grant
“Improved understanding of BDNF regulation in Alzheimer’s brain may enhance development of new treatments to repair nerve cells and to monitor and restore memory loss associated with Alzheimer's disease.”
Rebecca Jane Rylett
University of Western Ontario, London, ON
Project: The impact of brain insulin resistance on cholinergic neuron function
$148,372 - Biomedical, Research Grant
“This research could indicate the potential for development of new therapeutic approaches to promote and maintain communication by cholinergic neurons in brain in which neurons have become insulin resistant.”
Alexa Pichet Binette
McGill University, Montreal, QC
Project: Early vascular brain changes and related protective factors in elderly at risk of Alzheimer's disease
$66,000 - Quality of Life, Doctoral Award
This project is jointly funded by ASRP and FRQS
“My research project is targeted towards the pre-symptomatic phase of Alzheimer's disease; I expect to identify sensitive markers of brain vascular health and protective lifestyle factors to postpone the disease onset.”
Hadir AlQot
University of Western Ontario, London, ON
Project: The functional role of nuclear 82-kDa ChAT in APP metabolism and its potential neuroprotective significance
$66,000 - Biomedical, Doctoral Award
“It is my hope that this research will help unravel potential novel therapeutic targets for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.”
Therapy
Lianne Trigiani
McGill University, Montreal, QC
Project: Impact of pharmacological therapy and physical exercise on cognitive function in hypercholesterolemic TGF mice
$20,000 - Biomedical, Masters Award
This project is jointly funded by the ASRP and the CCNA
“My research currently focuses on prevention, but the findings could also lead to finding a more effective treatment."
Ahmed Hussin
York University, Toronto, ON
Project: Modulating memory circuits: harnessing DBS to alleviate memory deficits in Alzheimer’s disease
$66,000 - Biomedical, Doctoral Award
"My hope is that my research will improve the memory-deficits associated with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, improving quality of living for people living with these disorder."
Yusuke Naito
McGill University, Montreal, QC
Project: The role of synapse organizers in amyloid beta-induced synapse pathology
$66,000 - Biomedical, Doctoral Award
“We cannot fix what we do not know, therefore we are studying the fundamental mechanism of Alzheimer disease to know how patients suffer from cognitive impairments.”
Edith Hamel
McGill University, Montreal, QC
Project: Role of a comprised cerebral circulation in susceptibility to cognitive failure
$150,000 - Biomedical, Research Grant
“Our current research project may help slow down the progression of vascular dementia, possibly through the use of therapies already available for the treatment of diabetes and hypercholesterolemia.”
Michel Cayouette
University of Montreal, Montreal, QC
Project: Novel mechanisms regulating intraneuronal Tau clearance as potential targets for Alzheimer's disease
$223,407 - Biomedical, Research Grant
This project is jointly funded by the ASRP and the Brain Canada Career Change Grant
“Our work will provide essential knowledge on which we could build to develop new therapies aimed at removing toxic Tau in neurons and prevent the progression of Alzheimer's disease.”