OMRF receives $3.7 million for Alzheimer’s research

The National Institute on Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has awarded the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) a $3.7 million, five-year grant to study immune reactions in the brain, which could lead to conditions like Alzheimer’s disease.

The NIH is the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research. Its mission is to advance understanding of living systems and apply that knowledge to improve health, extend life, and reduce illness and disability.

OMRF is a nonprofit dedicated to basic biomedical research aimed at improving health and extending lifespan. Its research focuses on lupus, multiple sclerosis, heart disease, cancer, and Alzheimer’s. The grant will support efforts to discover a medication that could slow or halt damaging immune responses in the brain.

“Longer term, we hope this research will lead to a new therapeutic approach to modulate the immune response in the brain—one that can maintain brain health into later years and slow neurodegenerative diseases,” said Bill Freeman, Ph.D., principal investigator for the grant.

Freeman will lead a study focusing on the brain’s immune cells, known as microglia, and a surveillance network that monitors potential threats, including diseases linked to aging.

Freeman hypothesizes that this surveillance network, initially protective against Alzheimer’s, may eventually worsen the disease by altering the function of brain immune cells. If proven correct, this would add to the list of biological processes that help the body at first but later cause harm.

"It turns out this network exists, and for reasons we don’t fully understand yet, it becomes more active with aging, especially in conditions like Alzheimer’s," Freeman said. "This grant is about determining whether this is a cause or a symptom of aging and these diseases."

OMRF scientist Heather Rice, Ph.D., a collaborator on the project, will study changes in amyloid beta, a protein in the brain and spinal cord. In Alzheimer’s, the protein forms toxic clumps in brain cells.

“The buildup of these plaques is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s. I’ll be studying how changes in these proteins relate to the brain’s hyperactive surveillance network,” Rice said.

The grant will enable scientists like Freeman and Rice to explore previously overlooked aspects of the immune system’s role in neurodegenerative diseases.