Thursday, December 20, 2007

Banner teams with international health care giant on Alzheimer's research

[Source: Phoenix Business Journal] - The Banner Alzheimer's Institute of Phoenix and AstraZeneca, a multi-billion-dollar international health care company, hope to advance understanding and treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

Scientists at the Banner Alzheimer's Institute and AstraZeneca plan to use cutting-edge brain imaging methods to find clues to how the disease progresses and affects the brain, offering a baseline for future studies. The information potentially could be used to monitor the effectiveness of existing treatments, reveal new therapeutic targets and enhance understanding of ways to curtail disease progression, the two groups said in a statement Wednesday.

Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia and affects more than 5 million Americans.
"We look forward to working with AstraZeneca on the development of this promising research tool for the early detection, tracking and scientific study of Alzheimer's disease in the living human brain," said Dr. Eric Reiman, executive director of the Banner Alzheimer's Institute, in a statement. "Our goals are to advance the scientific understanding of Alzheimer's disease and evaluate promising disease-slowing and prevention therapies in the most rapid and rigorous way."

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