Director's Message

Established in 1979, the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging (SBCoA) conducts research, education and outreach, and clinical programs on healthy brain aging and neurodegenerative disorders.

Collaborative Research

Highly productive and collaborative basic and clinical scientists work together, producing synergistic and high impact research that is changing the field of aging and age-related neurodegenerative disorders.

Center scientists are focused on understanding the mechanisms involved in development and progression of age-related neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias and stroke, and are seeking new knowledge breakthroughs to combat these diseases of the elderly.

Ultimate Goal

The ultimate goal of the SBCoA is to catalyze innovative and outstanding research while ensuring a more rapid rate of progress toward new therapies to delay or prevent age-related brain disorders, so that our human volunteers, patients, and caregivers become the beneficiaries of our advances in knowledge.

In 1985, the SBCoA was named as an Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, one of the original ten centers funded by the National Institute on Aging. The University of Kentucky Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (UK-ADRC) supports and facilitates research aimed at elucidating the pathogenic mechanisms underlying the transitions from normal cognitive aging to the development of cognitive impairment, with a long-term goal of enabling more effective translation of this mechanistic knowledge to intervention strategies.

Functions of the Center

The UK-ADRC also promotes education and outreach, provides clinical and neuropathological diagnoses and care of patients with cognitive impairment, and runs an active clinical trials program to test potential new therapies. These activities are critical because, with the aging of the population worldwide, age-related cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease are reaching epidemic proportions requiring a desperate need to identify strategies for effective therapeutic intervention.

We invite you to explore our website for more details about our research, education and outreach, and clinical programs.

Linda J. Van Eldik, PhD | Director, Sanders-Brown Center on Aging