Center on Aging boosts research collaboration to improve life for seniors
Under consideration by the National Institute on Aging, the grants would link research projects into the causes, prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. The center—and this is why director Lotta Granholm, DDS, Ph.D., calls it “the clubhouse”—serves the collaborative efforts of researchers in colleges and departments across campus whose investigations relate to aging. The quaint Charleston single house at 26 Bee St. is a gathering place for researchers and clinicians to coordinate plans and develop programs. “Our objective is to improve the quality of life for older adults in South Carolina through research and the education of health professionals,” Granholm said. “We help in grant writing and pilot grants, we provide seminar faculty and speakers on aging, and collaborate with researchers at MUSC, USC in Columbia and at Clemson.” Granholm’s focus at the moment is awaiting the outcomes of the center’s grants, both of which would establish the center at the heart of its mission to influence collaboration among researchers. They expect an NIH response in two or three months. “We’re competing against the best,” Granholm said. “There are only a handful of centers on aging in the nation and only one in the Southeast.” Granholm relayed the dire information: $350 billion spent annually on care for elderly Americans with Alzheimer’s disease, a number that’s expected to triple in the next 20 years. And South Carolina’s in the thick of it—a popular retirement state, the belly of the stroke belt, high in age-related diabetes, heart and kidney disease, and hypertension. “All of which are related to Alzheimer’s disease,” she said, “and that’s grim news for South Carolina’s economy.” It’s the center’s aim to enhance the quality of life for South Carolinians by teaching people to live healthy into their old age. A close collaborator in this effort is Esther Forti, Ph.D., R.N., director of the South Carolina Geriatric Education Center, whose office is upstairs in the Center on Aging building. Another important collaboration, especially in terms of research and funding endeavors, is the Neuroscience Institute and its director, Mark Kindy, Ph.D. The Alzheimer’s disease program—principal investigator is Jacobo Mintzer, M.D., of the Department of Psychiatry and Granholm, the co-PI—is a translational research project that brings basic science discoveries in the effects of cholesterol through the process that takes them to a clinical level. The second program is similar but deals with a condition called age-related parkinsonism. About 50 percent of people older than 80 have this movement disorder that increases in risk with age and is characterized by Parkinson’s disease-like tremors. Granholm is the principal investigator and Lawrence Middaugh, Ph.D., the co-PI. “Healthy living leads to healthy aging,” Granholm said. “Exercise, diet and a number of other factors—factors our research is investigating—affect all neurodegenerative diseases.” The Center on Aging provides MUSC investigators in labs across campus and from a wide range of disciplines with an infrastructure and an opportunity to interact under one roof. They span MUSC’s colleges and departments. In bringing basic science to the bedside, in what is called a “translational approach,” Granholm said the center will never treat patients but will coordinate treatment and aid in clinical geriatrics. “The collaborative spirit here is never intended to siphon money from the departments and labs but to serve departments and labs with added resources and funding they could not get otherwise,” Granholm said. “We have full-time fund raisers; we can make collaborative grants happen; we attract faculty and pay for recruitment; and we promote good relations by acting as mediator among the departments. The Center on Aging was established in 1987, is the oldest center on campus, and has become a center of interest as the state’s population ages. Investigators and clinicians alike have begun to see an ever-increasing inter-relationship among age-related diseases that demands an interdisciplinary team approach to research, patient care and education. “Most of South Carolina is underserved in health care,” Granholm said, pointing to the largely rural nature of the state with high concentrations of minorities living in rural areas. Because rural areas do not receive the funding they need to deliver quality education, people there tend to have less prenatal care, more of their children die as infants or in their early years and in their old age they are hit with a greater number of strokes, diabetes, heart disease, renal failure and hypertension than the general population. The Center on Aging’s role is to work on these apparent health problems
by providing resources towards education, research and outreach.
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