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Upstate researcher receives over $1 million for research to help better identify patients at risk of Alzheimer's

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Upstate researcher receives over $1 million for research to help better identify patients at risk of Alzheimer's

     Upstate researcher Johnathan Hess, PhD has received over a million dollars to continue his efforts to uncover the risk factors for cognitive deterioration in people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. This funding from the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) will help Hess further develop his Brain Gene Expression and Network Imputation Engine (BrainGENIE) to try and reveal gene networks and biological pathways in the brain and cardiac tissue underlying cognitive impairment in dementia, and pave the way to precisely define individuals who are at risk for or resilient to Alzheimer’s disease. Hess is an Assistant Professor in the Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences and Neuroscience & Physiology departments and also received his PhD in Neuroscience from SUNY Upstate Medical University in 2017.

Upstate researcher Johnathan Hess, PhD has received over a million dollars to continue his efforts to uncover the risk factors for cognitive deterioration in people with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease from NINDS.

     Like many, Hess has experienced the devastating impact dementia and Alzheimer’s can have on a family. He was inspired to investigate Alzheimer’s when an opportunity to combine it with his psychiatry research arose. “A major research interest of mine has been developing computer models of the brain in order to identify the molecules that drive brain disease,” says Hess. “One such model, called the BrainGENIE, started giving us very encouraging results around the time that the NINDS was asking for novel ideas to tackle Alzheimer’s disease.”

     BrainGENIE works by comparing existing data on gene markers from brain tissue samples from deceased donors to new data on those same gene markers in blood samples from patients living with psychiatric disorders. “The main goal of BrainGENIE was to have a tool that lets researchers study biologically important molecules in the living brain. This simply can’t be achieved with neuroimaging tools, like MRI for example, because those only offer a broad view of brain activity,” Hess explains. He and his co-developer and mentor Stephen Glatt, PhD have spent the last year improving the tool and boosting its performance, and are now ready to work to apply it towards dementia. “We are using those innovations to fuel this new NINDS-funded project with the goal of identifying new biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease from multiple organ systems.”

     Hess lists three specific aims for this project:

  • Continue improving our BrainGENIE and HeartGENIE models to improve their accuracy in predicting biologically important molecules in the brain and heart. 
  • Use our models to uncover biological changes related to memory issues in dementia. 
  • Build an artificial intelligence model fed with our new results to more accurately predict changes in memory over time. This project will identify risk factors potentially driving memory loss, a critical step toward improving diagnosis, intervention, and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease.

     Hess is hoping this work helps distinguish who will develop Alzheimer’s and dementia with more accuracy. “One of the most difficult challenges facing Alzheimer’s disease research is that the known genetic risk factors and abnormal brain markers for the disease are not very good predictors of who will develop memory problems; some people with these risk factors and brain changes are able to age well with no cognitive issues. We want to understand why and how they stay resilient because that might help us find ways to keep more aging people healthy.”

     “I feel extremely fortunate to have been awarded this competitive project grant from NINDS and to be receiving the continued support of faculty, administrators, and leadership at SUNY Upstate. Embarking on this next chapter of my career as a new independent investigator feels surreal and thrilling. Knowing that I can foster a research vision that can support a team of exceptional scientists feels immensely gratifying. I hope this project attracts and retains talented trainees to our research division to further stimulate cutting-edge research that advances the lab’s and University’s mission.”




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