A Big Alzheimer’s Drug Study Is Proceeding Cautiously, Despite The Pandemic – By Jon Hamilton (NPR) / Oct 20 2020
Medical research was an early casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic.
After cases began emerging worldwide, thousands of clinical trials unrelated to COVID-19 were paused or canceled amid fears that participants would be infected. But now, some researchers are finding ways to carry on in spite of the coronavirus.
“It’s been a struggle of course,” says Joshua Grill, who directs the Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders at the University of California, Irvine. “But I think there’s an imperative for us to find ways to move forward.”
Grill got a close-up view of the challenge in July, when COVID-19 cases were spiking nationwide just as he was trying to launch a study.
UC Irvine and dozens of other research centers had just begun enrolling participants in the AHEAD study, a global effort that will test whether an investigational drug can slow down the earliest brain changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease.
Continue to article> https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/10/20/925493843/a-big-alzheimers-drug-study-is-proceeding-cautiously-despite-the-pandemic
