Brain Health
- Initiating a landmark study on how diabetes and obesity contribute to Alzheimer’s disease
- Exploring the effects of dietary intake of good versus harmful fats on memory
- Producing data to support the “first in human” clinical trial of stem cells to treat Alzheimer’s disease
- Introducing a novel technology—advanced single-cell gene profiles — to identify changes in individual brain cells that promote dementia
- Studying brain structure via MRI and testing memory skills in individuals with diabetes to determine effects of disease over a 30-year period
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)
- Identifying how exposures to pesticides, metals, air pollution, or other industrial and consumer chemicals increase ALS risk and progression
- Applying advanced computational tools to understand how genetics, the immune system, and cell metabolism interact with environmental exposures in persons with ALS, the goal being to make ALS a preventable disease
- Examining the benefits of repurposing currently approved anti-inflammatory drugs to treat ALS
- Increasing patient and control participation in national drug trials at the Pranger ALS Clinic
Diabetes
- Establishing diet recommendations (increase good & lessen harmful fats) to prevent neuropathy
- Initiating a clinical trial to determine if surgical weight loss and/or exercise can prevent nerve
damage and improve cognitive skills of patients with diabetes - Study why children and teenagers with obesity, prediabetes, and diabetes develop nerve damage
- Repurposing an available anti-inflammatory drug for treating diabetic neuropathy
- Understanding how gut health affects nerve function in the brain and peripheral nerves
COVID-19
- Creating a multidisciplinary Long COVID-19 Clinic to care for patients suffering from chronic complications and follow them through their recovery to better understand the disease and its long-term effects
- Developing an innovative treatment for dangerously high blood sugar surges caused by COVID-19 in patients with diabetes
- Initiating a clinical trial to identify inflammatory biomarkers that help predict how COVID-19 will affect patients with diabetes
- Beginning a clinical trial to assess COVID-19’s long-term and permanent damage to brain, heart, and kidney