Eileen Poiley, MS, Director of Education  at the Byrd Institute started the podcast during Covid as a means to provide the much needed education and  support to family caregivers. The Alzheimer's Caregiver Podcast just posted it's 100th episode, and based on the positive feedback and widespread impact, it will continue posting episodes to help caregivers.

Click to listen the podcast

click to read the USF Health full article 

Dr. Laura Blair, PhD, a researcher at the Byrd Institute, was recently promoted to Associate Professor with Tenure. Dr. Blair was also awarded a grant from the Alzheimer’s Association International Research Grant Program to develop a novel model to study resilience in neuropsychiatric symptoms in AD.

Joseph McMillan is a PhD student in Dr Thinakaran's lab and is interested in discovering how genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease lead to people getting the disease later in life. Read more

 Dr Ponnusamy was awarded a fellowship from the Alzheimer's Association International Research Grant Program. This Research Fellowship will help him to characterize the interplay between BIN1, APOE (the top two risk genes for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease), and tau pathophysiology. This project might elucidate the molecular mechanisms underlying BIN1-dependent APOE modulation of tauopathy.Click for more information about Dr Ponnusamy’s research

Hariom Yadav, PhD and USF Health researchers discover that fenchol, a natural compound found in basil and other plants, has the same beneficial effect as gut-derived metabolites in reducing neurotoxic effects of Alzheimer’s disease amyloid-beta in model systems. Dr Yadav, associate professor of neurosurgery and brain repair at USF Health and  Director of the USF Center for Microbiome Research was recently published in the Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience.

Click to read the full story about the Natural compound in basil that may protect against Alzheimer’s disease pathology.

Click to read the full story about USF Health researcher gut microbiome studies to improve brain health, decrease age-related diseases.

The USF Foundation announced a $1.8 million estate gift to USF Health that will fund a women’s heart health professorship, dermatology research endowment and caregiver education programs at the Byrd Alzheimer’s Center. Bruce Mackey, an avid community volunteer and USF Health patient, made the generous gift to USF.
“The USF Health Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute is honored to be one of the recipients of this gift”, said Dr. Gopal Thinakaran, CEO of the Byrd Institute. “Education and support for family caregivers is part of the Institute’s mission and this gift will enable us to do even more for the families affected by this devastating disease.”

Mackey lost family members to Alzheimer’s, which inspired him to allocate part of his gift to support caregiver programs. The new fund will be used to expand the Institute’s caregiver programs and to produce new educational resources to help family caregivers.

Click to read the full story about the Mackey estate gift and the impact to USF.

Click here for Byrd Institute caregiver programs.

Dr. Amanda Smith, Director of Clinical Research at the Byrd Institute, was interviewed on ABC Action News to announce a new clinical trial being conducted at the Byrd Alzheimer's Institute. The trial is called the AHEAD Study and is being conducted at 75 sites across the U.S. and Canada. We are very pleased to be part of such a groundbreaking research study and we know the impact this could have worldwide.