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March 31 2009
The McKnight Brain Research Foundation Elects Dr. Judith Salerno as New Trustee
The McKnight Brain Research Foundation (MBRF) is pleased to announce the appointment of Judith A. Salerno, M.D., M.S. as a trustee effective, April 1, 2009.
Dr. Salerno is Executive Officer of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies. As Executive Officer, she is the chief operating officer and executive director of the Institute, which provides independent, evidence-based advice on matters of health to the public and private sectors. She is responsible for managing the IOM’s research programs and guiding the Institute’s work on a daily basis. As trustee of the MBRF, Dr. Salerno will continue in her current position with the IOM.
Prior to coming to the IOM, Dr. Salerno was Deputy Director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She oversaw over $1 billion in aging research conducted and supported annually by the Institute, including research on Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, frailty and function in late life, and the social, behavioral and demographic aspects of aging. As the NIA’s senior geriatrician, Dr. Salerno was vitally interested in improving the health and well-being of older persons, and designed public-private initiatives to address aging stereotypes, novel approaches to support training of new investigators in aging, and award-winning programs to communicate health and research advances to the public. Dr. Salerno also served on numerous boards and national committees concerned with health care issues ranging from the quality of care in long-term care to the future of the geriatric workforce.
Before joining the NIA in 2001, Dr. Salerno directed the continuum of Geriatrics and Extended Care programs across the country for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Washington, D.C. While at the VA, she launched widely recognized national initiatives for pain management and improving end-of-life care. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Salerno was Associate Chief of Staff at the VA Medical Center in Washington, D.C. where she developed and implemented innovative approaches to geriatric primary care and coordinated area-wide geriatric medicine training. Dr. Salerno also co-founded the Washington D.C. Area Geriatric Education Center Consortium, a collaboration of more than 160 educational and community organizations within the Baltimore-Washington region. The consortium generates educational opportunities for professionals serving the aging. Earlier in her career, Dr. Salerno was a Senior Clinical Investigator at the NIA, implementing clinical research protocols for patients with Alzheimer’s disease and hypertension.
Dr. Salerno earned her M.D. degree from Harvard Medical School in 1985 and a Master of Science degree in Health Policy from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1976. She also holds a Certificate of Added Qualifications in Geriatric Medicine and was Associate Clinical Professor of Health Care Sciences and of Medicine at the George Washington University until 2001.
The purpose of the MBRF is to promote research and investigation of the brain in the fundamental mechanisms that underlie the neurobiology of memory with clinical relevance to the problems of age related memory loss. Dr. Salerno’s background and experience make her uniquely qualified to serve as trustee of the MBRF.
Dr. Salerno will serve with the current trustees, Dr. John G. Clarkson, Charlotte, NC; Dr. J. Lee Dockery, Gainesville, FL; Dr. Michael L. Dockery, Charlotte, NC; Dr. Nina Ellenbogen Raim, Miami Beach, FL; and Teresa W. Borcheck, Corporate Trustee, Orlando, FL. in their role of fulfilling the purpose of the Foundation in promoting research of brain in age related memory loss with the goal of preventing, delaying or developing therapies for the cognitive decline associated with the normal aging process.
October 15, 2008
NIA and McKnight Brain Research Foundation Join Forces to Support Cognitive Aging Research
Contacts:
Peggy Vaughn
National Institute on Aging
(301) 496-1752
nianews3@mail.nih.gov
Teresa W. Borcheck
McKnight Brain Research Foundation
(407) 237-5907
teresa.borcheck@suntrust.com
Richard Scarfo
Foundation for NIH
(301) 402-5311
rscarfo@fnih.org
The Research Partnership in Cognitive Aging is a newly launched public-private effort to support current and emerging research on age-related changes in the brain and cognition. Jointly funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the McKnight Brain Research Foundation, through the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), this effort is expected to award an estimated $20 million in research grants over the next five years. The research partnership is aimed at expanding understanding of how we think, learn and remember with age and at developing interventions to maintain cognitive health as we grow older.
“Mental declines typically seen in older people are not necessarily inevitable,” said NIA Director Richard J. Hodes, M.D. “This partnership will support two research initiatives. One of these initiatives will help define healthy cognitive aging on every level—from the molecular and cellular to the physiological and behavioral. Such research is vital to developing evidence-based interventions to delay or halt cognitive decline. The other initiative will fund pilot clinical trials, laying the groundwork for future full-scale clinical trials.”
The McKnight Brain Research Foundation will donate $1 million annually for five years; the NIA will fund and award the peer-reviewed research grants. NIA is accepting online applications for two funding opportunities: RFA-AG-09-009, Interventions to Remediate Age-Related Cognitive Decline and RFA-AG-09-010, Neural and Behavioral Profiles of Cognitive Aging. NIA will accept applications until Nov. 3, 2008, and anticipates awarding the grants in mid-2009.
The partnership builds on the momentum of the Cognitive Aging Summit, an October 2007 conference in Bethesda, Md., that highlighted cutting-edge research on age-related brain and cognitive changes. That meeting, convened by the NIA under a grant from the McKnight Brain Research Foundation to the FNIH, brought together 250 scientists from diverse disciplines to discuss critical questions in age-related brain and cognitive research and explore future avenues of research.
“The McKnight Brain Research Foundation is excited to work with the NIA to advance the scientific understanding in this area,” said J. Lee Dockery, M.D., McKnight Brain Research Foundation board trustee. “The vision of the McKnight Brain Research Foundation is to improve the quality of life through the understanding and alleviation of age-related memory loss. This research partnership with the NIA, through the FNIH, allows us to leverage both public and private resources to raise the level of awareness of the importance of cognitive health in the aging and hasten research discoveries leading to clinical interventions which will prevent or delay age-related cognitive decline.”
The NIA leads the federal government effort conducting and supporting research on the biomedical and social and behavioral aspects of aging, including Alzheimer's disease and age-related cognitive decline. For information on age-related cognitive health and dementia, visit the NIA's Alzheimer's Disease Education and Referral (ADEAR) Center at www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers or call 1-800-438-4380. For more general information on research and aging, go to www.nia.nih.gov.
The McKnight Brain Research Foundation, based in Orlando, Fla., supports brain research to alleviate the specific influence of age-related memory loss. For more information about the foundation, go to http://www.tmbrf.org.
The FNIH identifies and develops innovative public-private partnerships involving industry, academia and the philanthropic community to support a broad portfolio of biomedical research programs that complement and enhance NIH priorities and activities. For more information about this congressionally chartered non-profit, 501(c)(3) corporation, go to www.fnih.org.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH)—the nation's medical research agency—includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
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