# Clinical Core

> **NIH NIH P20** · VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER · 2020 · $698,121

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY – CLINICAL CORE
The Exploratory Vanderbilt Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (VADRC) Clinical Core will support local and
national Alzheimer’s disease research activities. Under the direction of Dr. Paul Newhouse, the Clinical Core
will enhance existing institutional infrastructure to engage and recruit older adults into Alzheimer’s disease and
related dementia research opportunities to support creating a future P30 Outreach and Recruitment Core.
Recruitment activities will build upon the existing 4000+ member Alzheimer’s Disease Research Registry and
focus on recruiting memory clinic patients and community-dwelling older adults interested in biomarker-focused
Alzheimer’s disease research opportunities. A strong emphasis will be placed on partnering with the
Vanderbilt-Meharry Alliance for outreach and engagement in the local African American community with a
focus on enhancing biomarker and autopsy participation. The Clinical Core will be responsible for establishing
and annually following a “proof of concept” cohort of 150 well-characterized participants age 60 and older who
are cognitively unimpaired or meet established criteria for mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer’s disease.
Leveraging well-established protocols and extensive local infrastructure, we will collect detailed clinical,
cognitive, neuroimaging, genetic, and biospecimen data. These data will support our Center’s thematic
emphasis on prevention targets, large-scale discovery, and pharmacological interventions that collectively
emphasize non-amyloid pathways of injury commonly co-occurring with core Alzheimer’s disease pathology.
The Clinical Core will engage cohort participation in antemortem brain donation assent, and a scalable autopsy
protocol pipeline will be implemented to support a future P30 Neuropathology Core in collaboration with the
Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. The Clinical Core will support local and national research efforts
in Alzheimer’s disease by fostering collaborations and sharing data locally and nationally. Data and
biospecimens will be collected in a uniform manner according to current best-practices and shared with the
National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center, the National Centralized Repository for Alzheimer’s Disease and
Related Dementias, and the National Institute on Aging Genetics of Alzheimer’s Disease Storage Site. The
Clinical Core will maximize local research initiatives by distributing clinical, cognitive, neuroimaging, genetic,
and biospecimen data to qualified investigators and maximizing Clinical Core cohort participation in
investigator initiated and multi-site studies. Finally, the Clinical Core will support training the next generation of
Alzheimer’s disease clinicians and investigators by providing participants, data, biospecimens, collaboration,
and leadership opportunities. Our interdisciplinary Clinical Core investigators have demonstrated expertise and
a proven track record in participant recruitment an...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10038237
- **Project number:** 1P20AG068082-01
- **Recipient organization:** VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** PAUL A. NEWHOUSE
- **Activity code:** P20 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $698,121
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-08-15 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10038237

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10038237, Clinical Core (1P20AG068082-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10038237. Licensed CC0.

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