California IN BRIEF : SAN DIEGO : University Gets Alzheimer’s Grant

The National Institute on Aging has awarded UC San Diego $18 million to create a national consortium to test drugs for Alzheimer’s patients--an action that experts say should speed promising drugs to the marketplace and, for the first time, open drug trials to patients who do not speak English. UC San Diego School of Medicine experts will divide the five-year grant among 30 centers across the country in an effort to test drugs more quickly and efficiently. California has three of those centers--at UCLA, UC Irvine and USC. The grant, among the largest UC San Diego has ever received, pushes the school to the forefront in Alzheimer’s research in the United States.