The new Cleveland Clinic Brain Study – the largest clinical study ever for brain disease – will collect data from up to 200,000 neurologically healthy individuals over a 20-year period to identify brain disease biomarkers and targets for preventing and curing neurological disorders.
One in every six people around the globe has a neurological disease such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, stroke or epilepsy. While the medical community has learned to manage some symptoms of brain disorders, it remains challenging to predict who will become sick or how to cure – or even stop the progression of – these diseases once they are diagnosed.
Led by Andre Machado, M.D., Ph.D., and Imad Najm, M.D., of Cleveland Clinic’s Neurological Institute, the longitudinal multi-year study is an enterprise-wide undertaking, enlisting a multidisciplinary team of physicians and scientists from across the global health system. The study launched at Cleveland Clinic’s main campus in Cleveland and will expand to additional Cleveland Clinic sites over time.
“Disrupting neurological diseases is one of the greatest challenges of our time and motivates our clinicians and scientists every day,” said Dr. Machado, chair of the Neurological Institute and the Charles and Christine Carroll Family Endowed Chair in Functional Neurosurgery. “By launching a study of this magnitude, we have the potential to discover causes of neurological disorders and what happens before symptoms become obvious – the silent phase. Our hope is to change the course of neurodegeneration, with the long-term goal of curing diseases in their earliest stages, years before symptoms are even seen. Achieving this will be a great gift to our children and grandchildren. We can make neurological care better for the next generations.”
Source: Healthcare in Europe
