June 1, 2015 - PCORI AD-PCPRN 3-Year Contract Award
GBFAI partnered on a successful joint clinical trial recruitment proposal, led by USA2, Mayo Clinic, University of Florida and UCSF’s Brain Health Registry. In mid-August, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) approved a $1.56 million, three-year grant for the creation of a patient and caregiver research network to bring those closest to Alzheimer’s and related dementias into the fold to accelerate a cure and understand its impact.
Principal Investigators for this PCORI project are Ronald Petersen, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, Dr. Glenn Smith, Professor and Chair, Department of Clinical and Health Psychology, University of Florida, and Meryl Comer, President of the Geoffrey Beene Foundation Alzheimer’s Initiative and lead Founder of 21st Century BrainTrust™.
The AD-PCPRN hopes to enroll large numbers of individuals into the network through innovative web and mobile-based tools that will greatly expand researchers’ understanding of brain health, and the impact of the disease and treatments on quality of life. Importantly, it will also screen and help individuals into appropriate clinical trials and studies.
Particular attention will be given to involvement and recruitment of patients and caregivers in minority communities. This PCORI grant also elevates the caregiver status, and respects that most of us traded-in professional careers to care for loved ones. Armed with the latest mobile applications, we can be empowered as active partners in research.
GALAXY supports the 3-year goals of the AD-PCPRN. It is an online platform for clinical trial mobilization, and a communications bridge between the AD-PCPRN and GAP (Global Alzheimer’s Platform), dedicated to the recruitment of the right patient for the right trial in order to enable research to be conducted faster, less expensively and on a far greater scale, driven by the power of BIG data.