Support the Gardner Family Center for Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders
SUPPORT THE GARDNER FAMILY CENTER FOR PARKINSON’S DISEASE AND MOVEMENT DISORDERS
“What we can do versus what we should do are two different questions. What we can do is tied to restrictions of research funding agencies. What we should do is only possible when money is no obstacle.
Studying how we are aging in such a diversity of ways is the moonshot of neurosciences. Only philanthropy affords the freedom and flexibility to get there.”
ALBERTO J. ESPAY,
MD professor and research endowed chair of the James J. and Joan A. Gardner
Family Center for Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders, principal investigator of the Cincinnati Cohort Biomarker Program
Dear Friend,
The James J. and Joan A. Gardner Family Center for Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders (Gardner Center) is greater Cincinnati's top destination for care. We diagnose and treat more movement disorder patients than anyone else in the region.
Our researchers are considered global experts in the evaluation of therapies to improve symptoms, for Parkinson’s disease as well as Huntington’s, tremor and other and movement disorders. This includes:
• Leading the first study of aging in the world designed to identify biomarkers on an individual level, giving patients a confirmed diagnosis.
• Launching the first international clinical trial of subcutaneous infusion of levodopa to reduce Parkinson's symptoms, which will be reviewed by the FDA this year.
Our vision is to harness the power of precision medicine for patients living with neurodegenerative diseases, to focus on their individual needs and care plan. We are so grateful for your thoughtful consideration to partner with our team in support of this important work that we are confident will improve lives here in Greater Cincinnati and around the world.
Alberto Espay, MD
Division Director, Research Endowed Chair; James J. and Joan A. Gardner Family Center for Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders
Andrew Duker, MD
Division Director, Clinical Endowed Chair; James J. and Joan A. Gardner Family Center for Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders
RESEARCH
Growing and retaining top talent
At the UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute, our faculty leaders bring an evidence-based focus to everything we do. To attract rising-star researchers and expand our quests for discovery, we must evolve our resources to maintain the fast pace required for continual health care innovation.
Endowed chairs for clinical leadership and research faculty
Historically, endowed chairs were a want-to-have, today it is a need-to-have in order for UC to be competitive with other nationally ranked academic medical centers. Chairs are essential to our ability to recruit and retain top talent among a competitive field of other neuroscience institutes. Establishing new chairs builds permanency and sustainability in our areas of excellence:
• Clinical leadership to advance the subspecialty care areas of Parkinson’s and movement disorders.
• Neuroscience research chairs to expand clinical trials and basic neuroscience research, to enable the discovery of new medications and treatments, and protect time for physicianscientists to balance patient care with research and teaching. An endowed research chair allows us to recruit new thought leaders or retain vital faculty and ensures continuity of important research efforts at the university.
Paired with our advanced facilities and research operations, endowed chairs will attract nationally and globally recognized faculty to the UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute. This accelerates the research and development of new treatments, all to directly benefit more patients.
Expanding research for improved outcomes
MRI research technology
MRI scans are now a key component of clinical research trials at the neuroscience institute— including in Parkinson’s disease, stroke, epilepsy, memory and mood disorders. Neuroimaging research allows a physician or researcher to evaluate a patient’s baseline or see how they respond to new medications or therapies. To support our robust research efforts, the institute is in need of a dedicated research scanner.
An MRI focused entirely on research, with staff trained in neuroinformatics and the latest imaging techniques, will broaden our discovery efforts across all specialty areas. The outpatient facility (that opened in 2019) was built to accommodate an additional MRI with researcher staffing space.
For example, the Cincinnati Cohort Biomarker Project, led by Alberto Espay, MD, involves a comprehensive collection of health data. It requires many MRI scans per year for its more than 800 study participants. With the evolution of personalized medicine our team now takes multiple images throughout a patient’s care journey to evaluate in real time how they are responding to medicine or therapies.
Research endowment fund
Neuroscience is the most prolific research area throughout the academic health center and the entire university. Creating a substantial research endowment will encourage further cross-disciplinary projects across departments and centers and can spark “high-risk/high-reward” ideas that are less likely to find support through conventional grant funding.
Pilot grants are the mustard seeds of research. Their results lead to much larger grants from the National Institutes of Health and other external foundations.
For example, $925,000 in pilot grant funding from 2014 to 2020 resulted in $16,236,369 in monies from the government and external foundations—a 16 to 1 return on investment.
A research endowment fund is critical to progress and will allow investigators to pursue more novel, long-term and untested research projects, giving them the security to take the risks that will yield breakthrough discoveries right here in Cincinnati.
What is clinical research?
It is the study of medicines, devices, products or treatments to determine safety and effectiveness for potential human use. Clinical research may be used for prevention, diagnosis and treatment, or for relieving symptoms of a disease.
Benefits of clinical trials
For patients
• Access to a novel treatment that isn’t yet available and could improve the patient’s quality of life.
• Regular and attentive care while contributing to research that may save lives in the future.
For physicians and scientists
• Driving exciting advances in patient care, discovering new treatments.
• Improving the standard of care and patient quality of life.
Research focused on precision medicine and lifelong brain health
At the UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute, we are exploring innovative new approaches for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases with great promise. Our research seeks to both understand the individual patient and pinpoint the causes of disease through a precision medicine lens in order to develop new, effective therapies.
Rescuing the brain
Significant time and financial resources have been invested worldwide over the last two decades around treatments to clear Lewy bodies in Parkinson’s and amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s patients. Both proteins form as a normal reaction by a brain fighting a variety of different injuries. Clinical researchers have proven success in eliminating these proteins from the brain, yet patients have not experienced a clear meaningful improvement in disease symptoms or progression. Research at UC has recently shown that treatments to remove these proteins may be harmful to some patients due to increased inflammation in the brain.
Here at UC, and in close collaboration with colleagues at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Dr. Espay’s team is working on a unique approach aiming to increase the levels of healthy proteins through periodic infusions. While there are many causes of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, most of those affected by these conditions have something in common: they are losing brain proteins. The major depleting protein in Parkinson’s is alpha-synuclein (because it aggregates into clumps known as Lewy bodies) and in Alzheimer’s is beta-amyloid (because it aggregates into clumps known as amyloid plaques). As these proteins deplete with disease progression, the functions for which they are responsible for become compromised. We have shown that there is a threshold of compensation above which these proteins protect the brain, prevent degeneration, and if replaced to keep their levels high, potentially reverse disease progression.
This therapy is currently in the preclinical phase with a goal to move to a phase 1 clinical trial by 2025.
Precision medicine
There was a distant time when cancers, such as breast cancer, were viewed as a single disease. Today, each person with cancer is studied to determine the individual molecular make-up of the cancer, so that the treatment can be precisely tailored. And while all cancer cannot be cured, individual expressions of it can. What works for one patient's breast cancer may be ineffective or harmful for another patient.
At the UC Gardner Center, our physician-researchers are now taking this same approach for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other diseases of accelerated brain aging.
Led by Dr. Espay, the Cincinnati Cohort Biomarker Program (CCBP) is tackling the diseases of brain aging from an ambitious new mindset, one that drops old definitions and lets the data guide and redefine a personalized medicine approach, beginning with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Personalized biology for these neurological conditions is only happening at UC. Through the CCBP study, a simple blood test can analyze a patient’s genetics and biology to determine their therapeutic implications at the individual level.
Thanks to initial support from the Gardner Family Foundation, the CCBP study launched in 2019 is the first of its kind—working to match a patient’s biology to treatments already available to slow or stop their disease. Dr. Espay and his team have already gathered health data points from nearly 1,000 patients, including genome sequencing and neuroimaging, in order to deploy principles of precision medicine in patients with Parkinson’s and other neurological diseases.
Similar to the evolution of cancer care and treatments, where physicians can now identify 20 different types of breast cancer and individualized treatment plans, as opposed to a single “cancer” diagnosis and treatment, Dr. Espay believes neuroscientists will soon be able to definitively diagnose and treat a patient with Parkinson’s disease based on their unique biological markers.
In a Buenos Aires-Cincinnati collaboration, over a period of four years, the CCBP has uncovered the genetic causes of approximately 30% of 341 enrolled patients.
CLINICAL CARE
Grow our patient data infrastructure, strengthen services for our centers of excellence, creating a national destination for care
The power of big data: Improving patient outcomes
To offer truly world-class care for our patients, we need to rely on not just the expertise of one doctor, but leverage the expertise of every single doctor in our institute and beyond. We must continue to scale our approaches to personalized treatment for our patients, understanding that care is unique to each individual.
With the vast amount of health data now available, a physician has millions of data points at their fingertips. The flow of new information never stops as biomedical knowledge from new research doubles every 73 days. However, the time lag from putting new knowledge into practice currently takes more than a decade.
The UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute is building an integrated network of research, clinical data and quality improvement processes that will rapidly deliver new learnings to the bedside, vastly improving patient care and quality and longevity of life.
This network will connect all of our centers of excellence, and eventually connect us to peer neuroscience institutes like the top-ranked Weill Institute at UC San Francisco. These connectors multiply the expertise of our institute, identifying new approaches and treatments that will improve patient outcomes not only in our region, but worldwide.
Adopting a big data approach to care
Before
• Average 17 years from evidence to practice.
• Lacks patient input and learned experience.
• Disparities in practice, decision-making.
• Measures process with outcomes.
After
• Less than 3 years to apply new evidence to patient care.
• Patient-driven research and resources.
• Aligned use of best practices, efficient and accessible evidence.
• Measures real-time patient outcomes, to continuously modify care.
Leveraging big data
This approach to care will measure real-world outcomes from our patients and make immediate and continuous improvements to the system as a result. Our leaders have already demonstrated how an integrated, data-driven approach can optimize patient outcomes for epilepsy and mental health care.
For example, UC’s epilepsy team has focused on controlling seizures and reducing patient barriers to medication. By partnering with patients to identify common issues, 30% of epilepsy patients were found to have at least one barrier to medication—including access or cost, forgetting to take the medication, or not taking it due to side effects.
With patients contributing data in between visits, through wearable apps, surveys and/ or seizure diaries, it drives both quality improvement and research. The care teams can view all of this in a digital dashboard to look for patterns and make immediate adjustments to a patient’s treatment plan.
“Getting to the truth of a patient’s problem and how best to cure it, requires data scientists, analysts and biostatisticians—people and tools that aren’t normally part of the healthcare model. And I think this is where philanthropy and the generosity of our community and patients can make a big impact.”
JOSEPH CHENG, MD Associate Director for UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute
Frank H. Mayfield Endowed Chair & Professor of Neurosurgery
Enhanced clinical services
As the busiest center for Parkinson’s care in the region, expanding talented, highly trained staff is crucial to provide the most comprehensive care to our patients and their caregivers. Along with our physician leaders, these additional key roles include:
• Nurse navigators who provide an essential core of clinical expertise for our center.
• Social workers who provide critical care and guidance to community and other resources for our patients
• Psychologists who support patients with the cognitive, emotional and behavioral effects of neurological disorders, part of the whole continuum of care.
As our patient outcomes continue to excel, new technology and comprehensive services in support of the whole person will evolve across the institute.
Our current priorities include:
• Software to improve the patient journey, upgrading our ability to seamlessly communicate with patients.
• Brain health longevity program to offer in-depth neurological assessments for signature world-class preventative care.
• Integrative medicine and survivorship clinics offered by the Osher Center for Integrative Health at UC, providing complementary therapies like wellness classes for nutrition, mindfulness and exercise.
EDUCATION
Building excellence in care, training, specialized staffing
In the hospital setting, talented nurses, resident physicians and support staff, often spend more time with patients and families than the attending physicians. These expert care teams provide compassionate, research-driven care to the bedside—and are a key component to becoming the neuroscience institute by which all others are measured.
Nursing endowment and expansion of programs
The demand for neuroscience nurses is high, due in part to an aging patient population and a growing rate of neurologic conditions, paired with a national nursing shortage. This high demand is also due to the extensive and ongoing requirements for continual, progressive education and skills training that nurses need to provide care in the neurological specialty and stay abreast of evolving advances and technologies.
An endowment fund will build opportunities for nurses to train, advance and contribute to the science of neurological care, further positioning our institute as a national leader in treating complex neurological problems.
Investments in nursing education within UC and area schools will grow the pipeline of passionate, skilled nurses, as well as help talent retention. Additional investments will enhance our ability to support nurses with patient mobility and ambulation, technology improvements and continuing education.
Fellowship positions
One- and two-year post-graduate training programs provide the opportunity to advance in a subspecialty area of neurological care. Fellowship positions will include MDs but also extend to opportunities for physician assistants and nurse practitioners who wish to pursue specialized training. Fellows will work in outpatient, inpatient and ICU settings across all subspecialty areas of clinical neurology and neurosurgery.
Unlike residency programs, funding for fellowships is not typically covered by federal programs like Medicare. We rely on philanthropy and other efforts to provide the funding to train the next generation of subspecialists in Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease and others.
Education and training programs
The UC Gardner Neuroscience Instistute is a magnet of talent, attracting out-of-state high school graduates and potential graduate students to Ohio with the promise of a world-class education, mentors in research and industry, and access to leading laboratory and clinical facilities. We plan expansion and support of the following areas:
• Simulation lab space and training support
Several of the top programs in the country use simulation-based training: realistic clinical environments that blend learning with virtual and hands-on experiences through a model of team-based patient care. At UC, leadership from across the academic health center and UC Health have articulated a high-level vision and operational model for a simulation center that will teach not only basic procedures but also complex neurological care skills.
• Diversity programming and recruitment efforts
The UC College of Medicine is committed to building a more diverse physician workforce that accurately reflects the patient community we treat. Our mission is to recruit and retain talented students, residents and faculty from all ethnic, racial and gender groups into our outstanding medical center and support them in pursuing neuroscience specialties.
• Continuing medical education
Training programs will provide continuing medical education in our areas of excellence. New programming will offer primary care physicians opportunities to enhance learning in often requested specialties like headache management.
MEASURES OF SUCCESS
Philanthropic support will speed our time to impact in the areas of research, patient care and training the next generation. We will track and measure our success in these areas through improved scores and metrics in:
Research
Our research portfolio will grow and be measured by: the number of publications in top level journals, faculty presentations at conferences, and scores/rankings from the National Institutes of Health and Blue Ridge Rankings. Additionally, we will track membership growth in premier research networks such as StrokeNET, Mood Disorders, and the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers (ADRCs).
Clinical
Investments into personalized medicine and clinical advancements will be measured by: improving patient outcomes (relevant to a patient’s quality of life including symptoms, functionality, and physical, mental and social health), impacting key hospital metrics like decreasing mortality and readmissions rates, and improving patient safety and satisfaction. These will additionally support our reputation rankings in mass media outlets like U.S. News and World Report
Education
Being a destination for complex neurological care also means being a destination for the best and brightest talent—from students pursuing our residency and specialty fellowship programs to new clinicians and researchers. As demand increases for limited spots (for example, hundreds of fellowship applicants for 10 openings), so will competitiveness and the strength of applicants, along with the quality of care and research across the institute. Professional physician networks like Doximity and professional organizations like Association of American Medical Colleges will help us measure this.
THANK YOU
We’re grateful for your thoughtful consideration of a leadership gift to the Gardner Center for Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders, in support of our 10-year Vision for Neuroscience.
CONTACT
Emma Laverty
Associate Vice President for Development University of Cincinnati Foundation
Emma.Laverty@foundation.uc.edu (610) 331-9046
Jonathan Agree
Vice President for Development, Academic Medicine University of Cincinnati Foundation President, UC Health Foundation
Jonathan.Agree@foundation.uc.edu (610) 533-3014
To learn more about how philanthropy can make a meaningful impact, scan the QR code or visit foundation.uc.edu/ucgni/parkinsons.
