Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC)

In April 2004, UCSF was designated as a national Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) with the Memory and Aging Center as the central coordinating site. Funded by the NIH, this large collaborative project involves multiple institutions and locations. It is designed to integrate basic science and clinical resources in order to investigate the clinical, molecular, neuropathological and neuroimaging features of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), non-AD dementias and mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

The ADRC has two overarching aims:

1. To bridge the gap between laboratory and clinical studies in dementia and aging, and
2. To explore the unique and overlapping symptoms seen in various neurodegenerative diseases.

The ADRC uses standardized and novel methods to examine patients and biological specimens, so that new hypotheses can be tested regarding the pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of dementia. The ADRC brings together investigators at various locations who are leaders in basic science and clinical research related to dementia. The core project is New Approaches to Dementia Heterogeneity.

California Alzheimer’s Disease Center (CADC)

In 1984, the State of California established the Alzheimer’s Disease Program (ADP) through legislation that sought to:

1. Improve health care delivery to persons affected by Alzheimer’s disease and their caregivers
2. Provide training and education to health care professionals, students, patients, caregivers and community
3. Advance diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

To carry out this mandate, the Alzheimer’s Disease Program established a network of ten dementia care Centers of Excellence at California medical schools. These California Alzheimer’s Disease Centers (CADCs) effectively and efficiently improve AD health care delivery, provide specialized training and education to health care professionals and others, and advance the diagnosis and treatment of AD.

Consortium for Frontotemporal Dementia Research (CFR)

The Consortium for Frontotemporal Dementia Research (CFR) is a UCSF-based consortium established to accelerate research of frontotemporal dementia (FTD). Initial funding for the CFR comes from private donations. The CFR was created to combine the power of this funding with collaborative science by the best minds in the field to find a cure for FTD related to progranulin mutations within 10 years.

Tau Consortium

The Tau Consortium is a group of international clinician-scientists working together to understand, and ultimately treat and cure, tau-related disorders (tauopathies) including progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), frontotemporal dementia with parkinsonism (FTD-P) and corticobasal degeneration (CBD). The consortium is studying the tau (MAPT) gene to understand how various changes in the gene lead to neurodegeneration.