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News from
the Chair
 Greetings,
Several high profile research programs are in mature stages
in the Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatrics. These
include basic, clinical, and health services research. These
programs address the major aspects of aging that are most
threatening to functional independence, including 1) Alzheimer’s
disease and other dementing disorders; 2) frailty caused by
loss of muscle mass and bone fragility that leads to loss
of balance and falls; 3) poor nutrition and lack of exercise
that play important roles in development of frailty and, very
likely, increase risk for development of Alzheimer's disease;
and 4) lack of adequate health services available to many
of our elderly. This lack of availability is particularly
true in Arkansas mainly because most of us live in rural areas,
many at or near poverty levels, economically speaking, and
have less education and educational opportunities compared
to much of the rest of the country.
Here in Geriatarics, researchers work together on these most
vexing problems of aging with the aid of $75,000,000 in grants
monies. Some of this $75,000,000 comes from the wonderful
people who donate small and large amounts to our efforts through
their private donations to the Reynolds’ Institute on Aging
Fund as well as from foundations that establish endowments
for perpetual funding of aging research. However, the major
portion of our researchers’ funding comes from national
competitions offered three times a year by the National Institutes
of Health. Because of the nature of our work, most of our
research grants come from the Institute on Aging, but we do
compete and win grants from others of the Institutes, ones
as varied as the Institute on Child Health and Human Development,
the Institute on Neurological Disorders, Arthritis, Musculoskeletal
and Skin Diseases, and from the Institute on Allergies and
Infectious Diseases. The usual range of funding is from $225,000
to $1,000,000 per year for five years; the former grants are
for individual research projects (we have many of these),
and the latter are for major Programs that include three or
four projects on the same topic and for the establishment
of Centers. We have one of each: a Program Project to investigate
the role of genetics, head injury, and frailty in increasing
the risk for developing Alzheimer's disease; and The Alzheimer's
Disease Center. The goal of these two large grants are to
develop techniques for detecting Alzheimer's disease before
or just at its onset and to develop rational strategies for
preventing or arresting the disease. Wouldn’t that be
great? We are working for you and for us, mostly baby boomers,
toward these laudable goals. Best wishes to you and to us
all in our endeavors.
Yours in Service,
Sue Griffin, PhD
Professor and Vice Chairman for Research
The Donald W. Reynolds Department of Geriatrics
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
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