# HTORR Ocular Tissue Resource for Alzheimer's Disease Research

> **NIH NIH U42** · NATIONAL DISEASE RESEARCH INTERCHANGE · 2021 · $334,446

## Abstract

Program Director/Principal Investigator (Bell, Thomas, J.):
Project Summary:
The development of effective diagnostics, treatments or cures for a wide range of diseases requires translational
studies that are directly relevant to human pathophysiology. The use of human biospecimens plays a key role
in accelerating scientific discoveries across the entire spectrum of biomedical research, including
neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD). Evidence from
clinical trials suggests that preclinical interventions may be key to slowing AD/ADRD disease progression
(Dehghani et al, 2018). However, this treatment strategy requires early detection, which highlights the need for
improved diagnostics for AD/ADRD. While much progress has been made with brain imaging and blood-based
biomarkers, the detection methods remain invasive and expensive. Ocular-based pathological changes
represent a potential target for biomarker investigation. To further investigate the ocular pathogenesis in
AD/ADRD, investigators require access to a unique human tissue resource that could provide rigorous,
reproducible, and uniform collection of human ocular and neurological tissue from defined cohorts of healthy and
AD/ADRD donors. Access to such a resource would be critical to ensuring consistent, predictive, and
reproducible experimental results that could be translated to the clinic for AD/ADRD patients. The National
Disease Research Interchange (NDRI) is a 501(c)(3), not-for-profit organization that remains at the forefront of
coordinating biospecimen procurement to match the needs of advancing scientific experimental methodologies,
and enabling cutting-edge research. For over 30 years, NDRI has received NIH funding for the parent award to
this administrative supplement, the Human Tissue and Organs for Research Resource (HTORR) Grant Number:
U42OD011158. NDRI is applying for the NOT-AG-20-034, Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) to expand its focus
beyond the scope of HTORR to develop and implement the Ocular Tissue Resource for AD/ADRD Research
(OTR-AD). For the current proposal to develop and implement the OTR-AD, NDRI will: 1) work with investigators
and key stakeholders at NEI to identify high-priority ocular biospecimen needs to support AD/ADRD research,
2) screen, authorize, recover, and process ocular and other neurological biospecimens from eligible post mortem
donors, and 3) distribute biospecimens to approved investigators and promote awareness of OTR-AD to recruit
new investigators.
In doing so, the biospecimen collection and preservation methods will be optimized to the experimental
hypotheses and procedures for each ADBR study using NDRI's experience in coordinating standardized
procurement, processing, preservation and shipping methods and maintaining industry best practices and
standards regarding the donation of human tissue for research. The overall objective of the OTR-AD is to provide
well-annotated ocular and neurolo...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10284285
- **Project number:** 3U42OD011158-31S1
- **Recipient organization:** NATIONAL DISEASE RESEARCH INTERCHANGE
- **Principal Investigator:** Thomas J Bell
- **Activity code:** U42 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $334,446
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 1989-01-09 → 2023-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10284285

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10284285, HTORR Ocular Tissue Resource for Alzheimer's Disease Research (3U42OD011158-31S1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10284285. Licensed CC0.

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