UC San Diego joined a federal initiative backed by up to $41 million to develop a national clinical trial platform for testing potential treatments to prevent or slow Alzheimer’s disease.
The four-year project, funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health and led by The McCance Center for Brain Health at Mass General Brigham, will test multiple combinations of natural products, repurposed FDA-approved drugs and other potential therapies simultaneously, according to an Oct. 21 news release.
UC San Diego’s Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study will help coordinate participating clinical trial sites, standardize study protocols and data collection methods and oversee consistent collection and handling of blood samples.
Researchers will use blood-based biomarkers to evaluate potential treatments, with p-tau217 serving as the primary biomarker. Participants will include people with no cognitive impairment or mild impairment whose biomarkers indicate early Alzheimer’s-related changes.
The platform is designed to operate across 20 clinical trial sites. By the end of the four-year project, researchers aim to have biomarker and safety data for five to 10 treatment regimens and identify candidates for larger clinical trials.
The use of p-tau217 comes as blood-based Alzheimer’s diagnostics advance. The FDA cleared the first blood test to help diagnose Alzheimer’s in May 2025. The Fujirebio test measures the ratio of two proteins, including p-tau217.
