PNGC is excited to announce that the Genome Center for Alzheimer’s Disease (GCAD) has received a 5-year grant renewal totaling $20 million to continue their work. GCAD, a collaborative research center between Penn, Boston University, Case Western Reserve University, Columbia University, the University of Miami, and the University of Indiana, aims to identify AD-related genes and eventual therapeutic targets by coordinating Alzheimer’s disease (AD) genetic data. The Center is led by Gerard D. Schellenberg, PhD and Li-San Wang, PhD, both Professors of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine. The center is supported by additional leadership from Dr. Adam Naj (Quality Control and Quality Assurance) and Statistical Analysis Core) of the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics and Dr. Yuk Yee Leung of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory (Data Management, Harmonization, and Information Transfer Core), and collaborative contribution with PSOM faculty including Casey Brown, Alessandra Chesi, Robert Babak Faryabi, Struan Grant (CHOP), Wan-Ping Lee and Mingyao Li.
GCAD plans to release up to 78,000 whole genomes as a part of the Alzheimer’s Disease Sequencing Project (ADSP) by 2023, and collaborate with other large genome sequencing projects such as NHLBI Trans-Omics for Precision Medicine (TOPMed) Consortium to expand sample size. GCAD researchers will continue to work with ADSP to process and analyze functional genomics data in order to better characterize affected genes and their functional significance for genetic variants that contribute to Alzheimer’s disease risk.
Learn more about GCAD by visiting https://www.adgenomics.org/.