John Douglas French, MD, world-renowned neurologist and cofounder and director of the UCLA Brain Research Institute, spent his entire career searching for a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. In 1989, he died of the disease.

The Foundation that bears his name recently announced a $400,000 award to support the research of Adam Boxer, MD, PhD, a faculty member at UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center. The focus of the Center is to provide the highest quality care for individuals with cognitive problems; to conduct research on the causes of degenerative brain diseases; and to educate health professionals, patients and their families.

The John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation supports talented young scientists involved in high-risk research that might not otherwise be funded. The new award—to be named the George and Reva Graziadio Research Scholar Award—was made possible through the generous support of the Graziadio family of southern California.

“With our rapidly growing senior population, it is critically important that we support cutting-edge research to find ways to delay, or even cure, Alzheimer’s disease,” says Mike Minchin, Jr., president of the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation. “Young scientists are frequently involved in extremely promising research, but do not have the funding to advance their studies. We believe it is imperative to give researchers like Adam Boxer the means to search for the causes, treatment and prevention of a disease that will reach epidemic proportions in the near future.”

The award will support Boxer’s research on the computational mechanisms of brain dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia. “This research award will allow us to adapt some of the newest and most powerful basic neuroscience tools to the study of patients with dementia," explains Boxer. "I am very grateful to the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation for its support.”

Minchin is tremendously excited by progress in the fight to conquer Alzheimer’s disease: “We support brilliant scientists like Adam Boxer, who have both the knowledge and the guts to find the answers—scientists who say, ‘It can be done.’”

To learn more about the Memory and Aging Center at UCSF, please contact Sue Merrilees at 415/514-2612 or smerrilees@support.ucsf.edu.