UNLV received a $3.2 million investment from the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) to develop a biomarker observatory that will capture and categorize emerging information on blood tests, brain scans, and digital devices that help diagnose and monitor Alzheimer's disease.

According to Dr. Jeffrey Cummings, a renowned Alzheimer’s expert and research professor in the UNLV Department of Brain Health, the new biomarker observatory is the first of its kind. 

He said the newest biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease are blood tests so advanced that they can measure very small amounts of substances in a person's body that may be linked to a disease. This information can be critical to driving earlier and more accurate patient diagnoses. 

“The problem we’ve had in the past is that there hasn’t been a central repository of biomarker information,” said Cummings, an ADDF Melvin R. Goodes Prize recipient who also serves as director of the Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience in the UNLV School of Integrated Health Sciences.

“We want to create a database that is accessible to every investigator around the world,” he added. “Biomarkers are used for predicting treatment response, as well as prognoses and diagnoses that can give us valuable insight into how the brain responds to treatment. There is enormous information coming out every week on biomarkers.”

The biomarker observatory will be operated in collaboration with UNLV’s Department of Brain Health and the Department of Genomic Medicine of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. Organizers anticipate it will be open for public access later this year.

“Biomarkers are essential to developing and commercializing new drugs—as we’ve seen with recent breakthroughs—and providing an early and accurate diagnosis for patients,” said Dr. Howard Fillit, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer of the ADDF. “This new observatory will be an invaluable tool for the Alzheimer's research community, helping to accelerate research efforts and offer a better understanding of the underlying biology of the disease.” 

According to Cummings, an estimated 43,000 Nevadans have a form of Alzheimer’s or dementia. Across the U.S., 6.5 million people are symptomatic with dementia in addition to millions of others who are not symptomatic but carry beta-amyloid, the protein associated with Alzheimer’s disease, and are at high risk for developing the disease.

FDA-approved Alzheimer’s drugs like Leqembi, Kisunla, and other medications are revolutionizing how the disease is treated. The new biomarker observatory will follow the model that Cummings established for tracking the progress of Alzheimer’s clinical trials.

“The annual clinical trial report produced by Dr. Cummings and his team is seen as the gold standard in the field and we look forward to bringing the same rigor and innovation to the biomarker landscape,” added Fillit.

Since 2016, Cummings has published an annual report on the state of clinical trials. In 2021, with funding from the National Institute on Aging, he created the clinical trials observatory, also at UNLV, in collaboration with the Department of Genomic Medicine of the Cleveland Clinic.

“This biomarker observatory was the next natural step extending the abundance of information we’ve gathered from our clinical trials observatory,” Cummings said. “When you take all of the information we have from the clinical trials observatory, combined with the advancement of Alzheimer’s treatments and a brand-new international database to study these critical biomarkers, it could not be more exciting. These are breakthroughs that will have real meaning for patients.”

The new biomarker observatory will house previously known results based on biomarker information gathered from the clinical trials observatory as well as other sources, Cummings said. That information can then be accessed by investigators globally.

“This new biomarker observatory shows that the School of Integrated Health Sciences continues to make incredible strides in neurodegenerative disease research,” said Ronald Brown, dean of UNLV’s School of Integrated Health Sciences. “These exciting developments are critical to the work we are doing in the Department of Brain Health and will go a long way in the fight against Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative conditions.”