HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Marshall University’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine has received a $1.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense to study the role of obesity and oxidative stress in Alzheimer’s disease.
Drs. Thomas Nelson, Komal Sodhi and Joseph Shapira are conducting the study, which is rooted in Nelson’s previous work regarding inflammation in Alzheimer’s disease and Sodhi and Shapiro’s research regarding oxidative stress in obesity.
According to researchers, obesity is one of the four most important predictive factors for Alzheimer’s disease.
The U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command awarded the three-year grant. It is the only Research Partnership Award in the department’s Peer-Reviewed Alzheimer’s Research Program for the current fiscal year and the first agency grant given to the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine since 2010.