UK Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Excels at Recent National Conference

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 5, 2016) - Two researchers from the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging won awards at the National Charleston Conference on Alzheimer's Disease (CCAD) earlier this month.

Ai-Ling Lin, Ph.D., and Jose Abisambra, Ph.D., were two of 15 researchers selected from high-caliber institutions such as Harvard, Mount Sinai and New York University to attend the conference based on the quality and originality of their research. 

Of the four awards presented, Sanders-Brown researchers were awarded two.

Lin was one of three recipients who received the $50,000 New Vision Award. She will use the award money to further her research into the effects of diet on healthy brain aging and ultimately hopes to shape specialized treatments for age-related brain diseases based on a patient's genetic background.

Abisambra was elected by other conference attendees to receive the George Bartzokis Travel Stipend Award for his "outside-the-box" thinking. Abisambra is currently researching how changes in protein synthesis give rise to a class of dementias called tauopathies.

The CCAD focuses on creating an environment for constructive criticism and cross-field collaboration among young scientists involved in Alzheimer's research, and to identify and fund promising theories to help compensate for the lack of funding in Alzheimer's research.

"The fact that Sanders-Brown received two of the four awards from this conference with some prestigious competition is an apt reflection of the quality work being produced by Ai-Ling, Joe and other researchers here," said Linda Van Eldik, Ph.D., director of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging. "This new generation of bright minds is making important insights into the mechanisms underlying age-related dementias."