‘It’s exciting’: VA awards OKC researchers $710,000 to study Alzheimer’s disease

Alzheimer’s disease takes away a person’s memory, but it also robs a person of their self-identity. Researchers in Oklahoma City want to learn more about the disease to slow it down.  

The Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation will study this disease for the next four years alongside the Oklahoma City VA Medical Center. Their work will draw a road map to give more veterans long and healthy lives. 

“It really is often surprising to folks who don’t know that this type of research is happening here,” said Bill Freeman, a professor and researcher with the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation. “I like figuring out things that we don’t know. The things that we can do now in neuroscience research were almost unimaginable even ten years ago.” 

The human brain is a complicated part of the body that requires a lot of data to analyze. 

“You think about all the things you’ve learned since you were a child and somehow managed to put that all up here,” Freeman said. 

A grant totaling $710,000 from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will help them pursue their research goals 

“It’s exciting,” Freeman said. “[We’ll] take all that data to understand how this disease is progressing.” 

Freeman said veterans have increased risks for diseases like Alzheimer’s due to things like traumatic brain injuries and other factors. Bill and his team will study immune cells. 

“We’re studying a pathway that actually wasn’t thought to exist in the brain,” Freeman said. “These are support cells in the brain.” 

Researchers learned that these cells lose their touch with age.

“Instead of cleaning up the things that need to be cleaned up, they start to do too much,” Freeman said. 

Freeman wants to buy people time. He said understanding how these cells work can help them prove whether they can regulate them. 

“Slow the progression of Alzheimer's,” Freeman said. 

Freeman said he is proud to help lead a team inside a place dedicated to preserving healthier bodies and minds. 

“This is part of that mission and that duty to care for veterans,” Freeman said. “I think all of us want to be able to live long and healthy lives where we’re really ourselves.” 

OMRF said an earlier grant from the Presbyterian Health Foundation helped purchase research equipment that made this VA grant possible.