It's a peek inside the quickening race to understand, treat and even cure Alzheimer's disease.
"We're still in early days, but we have had some progress," explained Kenneth Kosik, the Harriman Professor of Neuroscience at UC Santa Barbara. He's a leading expert in the field, and is sharing details of how researchers like himself, are charting a path towards understanding the disease in a free talk on Thursday.
"My own personal work in this area is another really exciting development in the last couple of years, which is the discovery in a family that gets Alzheimer's because of a gene mutation, and some of them have a second mutation that protects them from the first mutation. And that has really opened up another big research direction," said Kosik.
“We will discuss how we should consider whether these new treatments are appropriate for our loved ones,” added Kosik, who is sharing his expertise on our current understanding of cognitive degeneration and where the field is going from both research and clinical perspectives.
“One issue we might raise,” he said, “Is how do we approach the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s when a person is still asymptomatic?”
Keeping Pace With The Rapid Advances in Alzheimer's will take place on Thursday from 5-7 p.m. in the Music Academy's Hahn Hall. It's free and open to the public.
