UCI Launches New Registry In Fight Against Dementia, Cancer, Other Diseases

IRVINE (CBSLA.com) — UC Irvine Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders or UCI MIND has launched a new online registry to help fight Alzheimer's disease and find a cure.

Similar to the Be The Match bone marrow registry, UCI Consent 2 Contact or C2C, is designed to help match patients with the appropriate clinical studies and make it easier for them to learn about ongoing trials they may be interested in participating.

Potentially lifesaving research are stalled because doctors and researchers cannot find participants to take part in their studies, scientists said.

"Eighty percent of clinical trials fail to meet recruitment goals making it harder for researchers to advance care in some of today's most dreaded diseases, like Alzheimer's," according to a press release by UCI MIND. "If studies enroll more rapidly, scientists can answer questions faster, improve medical care and potentially find a cure for diseases sooner."

"We are at the forefront of finding solutions, but we need the help of the community to make these promising studies as successful as possible. With the C2C Registry, it's easier than even for people who want to do their part to help find preventions, or potentially even cures," said Dr. Joshua Grill, a researcher and co-director of UCI MIND.

Lucy Lisabeth, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in 2008, wants to be part of solution. She is now part of a groundbreaking study at UCI MIND.

"We know the thief that this disease is, and we do not want this for our children. We sure don't want it for our grandchildren," Lucy's husband, Roger Lisabeth said.

He is painfully aware that a cure won't happen in time to save the love of his life. But hopefully, it will come in time to save the lives of others.

"We can take skin cells from people with Alzheimer's disease and then reverse engineer those skin cells into what we call a stem cell," said Dr. Grill. "And from those stem cells, we can create models in which we can more efficiently test drugs to stop what's happening in those cells."

In 2006, $220 billion was spent on healthcare costs related to Alzheimer's because patients can live from 3 to 20 years while battling the disease, according to UCI MIND.

"This is the single greatest unmet medical challenge of our times, and it has the potential to bankrupt our country. And we're talking about over a $1 trillion in expenses just to care for Alzheimer's patients by the middle of the century," said Frank LaFerla, Dean of Ayala School of Biological Sciences at UCI.

Interested individuals can visit the C2C Registry to learn more and enroll.

A fundraising gala supporting Alzheimer's disease research will be held this Saturday on Dec. 3, if you would like to contribute, click here.