2021-11-04 BTB - Dr. Linda Van Eldik (Sanders-Brown Center on Aging)

[00:00:14.73] KODY KISER: The University of Kentucky is proud to be home of global leaders in aging and brain research, all striving towards the same goal, finding a stop to the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States, Alzheimer's Disease.

[00:00:29.46] UK's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging has been around for nearly half a century, helping lead the way in Alzheimer's and dementia research. Center Director Dr. Linda Van Eldik firmly believes they will find a cure through the work going on right here on the UK campus.

[00:00:47.22] With their dedicated work recently earning the Center renewed funding from the National Institute on Aging, education and community support are big parts of the role Sanders-Brown plays. In between various trainings, workshops, and community events, they are also making life-changing and life-saving discoveries. Soon Van Eldik and others at Sanders-Brown will be able to welcome a very valuable piece to their research, the volunteers, into a brand new facility at UK HealthCare's Turfland campus.

[00:01:20.16] I'm Kody Kiser with UK Strategic Communications. On this episode of "Behind the Blue," Van Eldik joins UKPR's Hillary Smith to discuss the larger game plan of finding a cure and the team effort between those volunteers, the world class faculty and staff at Sanders-Brown, and the University of Kentucky as a whole.

[00:01:43.67] HILLARY SMITH: We are joined today by Dr. Linda Van Eldik, Director of UK's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, going to talk with us a little bit about some exciting things going on at the Center, things that have gone on over the past few months. You all have a lot of exciting things happening. And Sanders-Brown has been around for several years, and you all have really established yourselves as a leader when it comes to Alzheimer's and dementia research. Just talk to us a little bit about how you all have achieved that through the years.

[00:02:15.42] DR. LINDA VAN ELDIK: Well, first of all, thanks, Hillary, for allowing me to be here and share our story. As you know, Sanders-Brown Center on Aging has actually been in existence for almost a half a century here in Kentucky. And our Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, the only one in Kentucky, was just recently renewed for another five years, so years 36 to 40. And so over the years, we've learned an awful lot about what's happening as people get older. And our mission is to enable healthy brain aging for all adults in Kentucky and beyond.

[00:02:51.29] HILLARY SMITH: And that grant renewal that you mentioned for years 36 through 40 is a $14,500,000 funding award that you all have received. What does that allow you all to do, in a broader sense of what you all do each day when you go to work?

[00:03:08.21] DR. LINDA VAN ELDIK: Well it's really wonderful that we got renewed, because it allows us to continue to provide clinical services for people around Kentucky. We have expert diagnosis, we have caregiver training. It also allows us to continue our world-class research on understanding what's happening in the brain as we age. It also allows us to provide educational and outreach programs to reach people throughout the world, in fact, with our resources.

[00:03:39.89] HILLARY SMITH: And that is something. You all have had this continuous funding for how many years now?

[00:03:46.10] DR. LINDA VAN ELDIK: So it was first funded in 1985. We were one of the first 10 Alzheimer's centers across the nation funded by the National Institute on Aging. And we've been continuously funded since then, since 1985. So we know an awful lot about what's going on as people age and what's happening early in the brain, way before any memory or thinking problems happen. We understand how disease can start building up early. We also understand things that we can do in our life to reduce the risk of getting dementia as we get older.

[00:04:22.25] HILLARY SMITH: And that's a big deal to have a place like this that calls Lexington home, the University of Kentucky home. What does it mean to you all to be part of this community?

[00:04:32.78] DR. LINDA VAN ELDIK: You know, we are the only Alzheimer's center in Kentucky, in this area, and we service people throughout the state. We're an important resource. We have world-class research, we have new medications. People can get involved in clinical studies to test potential new medications or lifestyle interventions that may be beneficial.

[00:05:01.55] And you know, the cure is eventually coming. And because of our resources and the ability for people to get into these early clinical studies, the cure is going to come here. We're going to-- whenever the cure comes, we're going to be part of it, because we are a very well-established Alzheimer's center that's a big resource throughout the nation.

[00:05:25.88] HILLARY SMITH: And you all have ongoing research, numerous projects underway, in both clinical and in the scientific areas. In clinical you all rely a lot on participants, and those come from right here in the community and people being willing to help out with what you all are doing.

[00:05:47.48] DR. LINDA VAN ELDIK: You know, we couldn't do what we do without the wonderful volunteers that participate in our studies. People are so dedicated. They come into our cohort-- it's called a longitudinal cohort. They come back every year, once a year, for memory, memory testing, psychological testing, medical exams, potentially imaging, or giving blood.

[00:06:13.22] Those are precious gifts. And that has allowed us to understand these early changes, because we can see in the living person what's happening in your brain. There are ways that we can test now for early, early changes, way before any symptoms. And if we didn't have the people dedicated coming back every year, we wouldn't be able to do this.

[00:06:37.40] HILLARY SMITH: And pretty soon you all are going to be able to welcome those people into a brand new facility over at UK HealthCare's Turfland campus.

[00:06:44.00] DR. LINDA VAN ELDIK: Yes, we're so excited about this. So we're building a brand new building at Turfland. It's going to be called Sanders-Brown Clinic Turfland, and it's almost ready. In a couple of months it'll be open. And it's going to expand our capacity more than double. It'll be a one-stop shop for people to come in and have their exams, have their all the testing.

[00:07:09.71] We're going to be doing a lot of new kinds of testing, like digital measures, looking at sleep, looking at retinal-- early changes in the retina, looking at EEGs, looking at your gait, I mean, do you have problems moving or walking. So it's going to allow us to really provide even more programs for the community.

[00:07:30.17] HILLARY SMITH: And that's something you all are obviously very excited about and long time coming to have a place like that.

[00:07:36.35] DR. LINDA VAN ELDIK: Right, and we'll actually have a building that is beneficial for people rather than the building that we've had for so many years, which is cramped and crowded. And this will really-- it will even have a room your family can wait and sit, an extended waiting room, have services for caregivers. I mean, it's going to be a one-stop shop. It's really exciting.

[00:08:01.84] HILLARY SMITH: And another piece to what you all do-- you mentioned a little bit at the beginning-- is you work to support and educate the community on various things when it comes to healthy aging. And one way you all do that is through the annual Markesbery Symposium, and that is coming up the end, towards the end of November.

[00:08:20.38] DR. LINDA VAN ELDIK: Right. This is actually going to be-- we have two parts to the Markesbery Symposium. We have a scientific session and a community session. The community session this year is on Saturday morning, November 20. And it's going to be all-virtual, so people don't have to come and be there in person. But we-- it's all by Zoom, and so I would encourage everybody to come.

[00:08:44.20] It's-- we're going to have a great program talking about what's going on in the field. We're going to talk about the new medication that's been recently approved, and what are the controversies surrounding that. We're going to have a very important Alzheimer's Center director from Emory. Allan Levey is going to be our keynote speaker.

[00:09:02.08] And then the scientific session is on November 22. That will actually be in-person at UK. And so we're going to have a scientific session with speakers from within, talking about the last 35 years of Sanders-Brown, celebrating that. We're going to have trainees giving talks. We'll have a poster session. It'll be really exciting, so I encourage everybody to come to both if you can.

[00:09:27.31] HILLARY SMITH: And all of these exciting things and achievements you all have had through the years obviously wouldn't be possible without the people that make up your team.

[00:09:35.83] DR. LINDA VAN ELDIK: It's all about the team. I mean, we-- I was blown away when I was first recruited to the University of Kentucky, in terms of how collaborative, how team work together, everybody's integrated, working together. And it's wonderful. I mean, we couldn't do it without the team. It's all about the people at Sanders-Brown, and they really make our success.

[00:09:59.96] HILLARY SMITH: And why do you think they deserve to be recognized?

[00:10:02.98] DR. LINDA VAN ELDIK: Well they certainly deserve to be recognized. If we didn't have the people working in Sanders-Brown, we wouldn't be able to do anything. I mean, it would be great to have, you know, one or two people, but then we wouldn't be able to do what we're doing. We have researchers that go all the way from the bench science, you know, from molecules, developing new medications for example. We have people outreaching to the community. We have people who are training to be the next new scientists of the future.

[00:10:36.02] And we have community science. We have people out in the community that are doing work, what are best practices in terms of outreach to the community, what works, what doesn't work. We have a wonderful African-American partnership, because African-Americans have been less represented in research, and they are almost twice as likely to get dementia. So we are trying to be very inclusive and work with everyone in the community. We think it's important that everybody is able to take advantage of our services and resources.

[00:11:14.47] HILLARY SMITH: And like everyone, over the past couple of years, it's been a time you all have had to adjust in a lot of your work. It had to keep going throughout all this. How has your team really stepped up and kept the work going?

[00:11:26.86] DR. LINDA VAN ELDIK: You know, we've all become Zoom experts, I think. We did have to slow down a little bit, in terms of our clinic operations and being able to see people in person. But we never really stopped. We were able to make arrangements. We had COVID testing ahead of time. We had, of course, all the social distancing.

[00:11:48.62] We also just made alternate arrangements to be able to keep doing our research. Some of the research had to be on pause for a bit, but we're pretty much back to normal now and, you know, back up full steam ahead. So we're glad that we're able to still do the research and provide the services for people.

[00:12:12.67] HILLARY SMITH: When you look at the life-changing work that's going on over at Sanders-Brown, this is obviously just kind of a brief discussion, hitting the highlights. Is there anything else that we haven't discussed today that you want to make people know about?

[00:12:25.99] DR. LINDA VAN ELDIK: Well I think one thing that we're really finding is that as we age, there are a lot of things that we can do to reduce our risk of disease and reduce our risk of dementia. But I think the other thing that's very interesting is that we're finding out that it's not just Alzheimer's that causes dementia. As we get older, there's a lot of other things that are happening in the brain.

[00:12:52.54] A lot of people have problems with vascular issues. You know, we are in the "Stroke Belt" in this area of the country. And so we have a lot of problems with people having multiple pathologies in the brain, multiple diseases building up, especially as we get older and older and older. And so being able to control some of those controllable medical problems and comorbidities, I think, is a contribution that we're making, understanding that if we can control those controllable issues, like high blood pressure, you know, exercise, diabetes. If we can control those issues, we have a much better chance of living longer and living healthier.

[00:13:40.31] HILLARY SMITH: Well Dr. Linda Van Eldik, thank you for joining us today to catch us up to speed on all the exciting things going on at Sanders-Brown.

[00:13:47.60] DR. LINDA VAN ELDIK: Well, thank you. My pleasure.