A brainstorming session involving UCSF physicians and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs has led to an innovative partnership that will increase awareness of the many forms of dementia, with the goal of promoting earlier diagnoses and getting more patients into research studies and clinical trials.

The online video community YouTube has joined forces with UCSF scientists to launch an Internet video channel dedicated to improving understanding of incurable neurodegenerative brain diseases, while helping caregivers cope with these devastating illnesses.

Screenshot of the UCSF Memory & Aging Center's YouTube page

The channel is the latest outcome of the "Fight for Mike" initiative in support of Silicon Valley executive Mike Homer's struggle with the rare, fatal illness, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (see July 2007 Insider story). Understanding CJD, UCSF scientists believe, will accelerate advances against the more common neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease.

Homer was diagnosed in the spring of 2007 and is being treated at UCSF. The Fight for Mike is led by two of his closest friends, Silicon Valley investor Ron Conway and Intuit chairman William V. Campbell.

The Fight for Mike has raised more than $7 million for CJD research at UCSF, where Stanley B. Prusiner, MD – who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1997 for discovering the protein known as prion that causes CJD – leads a major research enterprise focused on all neurodegenerative diseases.

The UCSF team has created an electronic badge, or "widget," containing links to the YouTube channel and the UCSF Memory and Aging Center web site. They have also created a Facebook group, "Defeat Dementia."

"The YouTube channel and these other forms of online communications will enable us to engage a broad audience in the fight against these illnesses," says Bruce Miller, MD, director of the UCSF Memory and Aging Center. "All of the dementias – including Alzheimer's disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Huntington's disease and others – share common features. If we can promote accurate diagnoses of patients, we can get them into clinical trials sooner. We believe that early intervention with novel therapies will be key to stalling and halting these diseases."

For more information on these topics, or on the UCSF Department of Neurology, led by Stephen Hauser, MD:

UCSF Department of Neurology:
www.neurology.ucsf.edu/brain

UCSF YouTube Channel:
www.youtube.com/UCSFMemoryandAging

UCSF Memory and Aging Center website:
www.memory.ucsf.edu

UCSF MAC CJD webpage:
www.memory.ucsf.edu/cjd

Widget:
www.clearspring.com/widgets/4845b6ad5d5f1484

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=15060128066