Nasser Zawia

Today in America, someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease every 68 seconds, and it’s the only leading cause of death with no cure, no preventative measure, and no treatment to slow it down. URI Pharmacy Professor Nasser Zawia is working to change that.

Studying Alzheimer’s disease in mice, rats and monkeys, he’s already made major discoveries that have garnered international attention. His latest research on an anti-inflammatory drug used to treat migraines in Europe has led to it being scheduled for human clinical trials as a treatment for Alzheimer’s. He says the drug could mean the difference between just treating Alzheimer’s symptoms and actually helping patients get better.

In 2005 Professor Zawia announced in a study funded by the National Institutes of Health that Alzheimer’s disease has its foundations in infancy when babies are exposed to low levels of lead. Nine years and $2 million in grant funding later, his follow-up studies have proven conclusively that exposure to a toxin in-utero while the brain is still developing can lead to a compromised system and later disease, and that infant exposure to lead results in late-age cognitive decline and pathology linked to Alzheimer’s disease. He also found that older adult mice exposed to lead did not develop symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, while infant mice exposed to lead develop symptoms of the disease in old age.

“A window of vulnerability of lead neurotoxicity exists in the developing brain that can influence Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis and cognitive decline in old age,” he concluded.

Professor Zawia, a native of Yemen, also directs the University’s Interdisciplinary Neuroscience Program, a field he calls “one of the last scientific frontiers where fundamental discoveries can be made.” He said that one of the keys to stopping Alzheimer’s disease is early detection. “If we can diagnose the illness earlier,” he said, “then we might be able to minimize the disease’s effects.”

Going forward, Professor Zawia’s research will contribute to the work of URI’s new George & Anne Ryan Institute for Neuroscience, which will bring even more funding and focus to the important area of neurodegenerative disorders, and hopefully lead to a breakthrough that will transform the lives of the millions affected by neurological diseases every day.