SPRINGFIELD, IL – The Illinois Department of Public Health has awarded 10 grants totaling nearly $3.5 million for Alzheimer's disease research and support, Dr. John R. Lumpkin, state public health director, today announced.

Funding for seven of the grants – $200,000 – is from the Alzheimer's Disease Research Fund (ADRF), a special fund to which taxpayers can contribute through their IL-1040 income tax returns. Since 1986, when the fund first appeared on the tax forms, $2.4 million has been donated to support 111 research projects.

The remaining three grants, totaling $3.3 million, were awarded to Alzheimer's disease assistance centers at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Springfield ($1,500,000); Northwestern University, Evanston ($300,000); and Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center, Chicago ($1,500,000). The centers at Northwestern and Rush serve the Chicago metropolitan area, including Cook, DuPage, Grundy, Kane, Kankakee, Kendall, Lake, McHenry and Will counties; the Southern Illinois University center serves the rest of Illinois' counties.

The grants, which are drawn from general revenue funds and have been awarded since fiscal year 1987, support the centers' four major mandates: identification, diagnosis and treatment, education and research. Through fiscal year 2003, grants have totaled nearly $25.3 million.

"Alzheimer's disease is a physically, emotionally, socially and financially devastating disease, not only for the person who suffers from it, but for his or her family," Dr. Lumpkin said. "The continued generosity of Illinois taxpayers allows critical research into the causes and most effective treatments for this disease."

Victims of this age-related form of dementia suffer a progressive loss of memory, attention span and the ability to learn. The disease affects nearly 4 million Americans, about 210,000 in Illinois.

ADRF grant requests were reviewed by the Department in consultation with the Alzheimer's Disease Assistance Act Advisory Committee and Peer Review Panel. Members of the advisory committee include professionals who work with people with Alzheimer's disease, researchers, victims' family members and representatives of the general public.

Following are the seven recipients of this year's Alzheimer's Disease Research Fund:

• Britto Nathan, Ph.D., Eastern Illinois University, "How do isoforms of human apoE differentially modulate neurite outgrowth from adult mice cortical neurons in culture?" $19,978
• Pascale Lacor, Ph.D., Northwestern University, "New molecular basis for memory loss in Alzheimer's disease," $30,040
• Darren Gitelman, M.D., Northwestern University, "Anatomic and spectroscopic study of Alzheimer's disease, mild cognitive impairment and normal controls," $29,952
• Scott Counts, Ph.D., Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center, "Synaptic gene expression in tangle-bearing cholinergic neurons in mild cognitive impairment," $34,500
• Dana Small, Ph.D., Northwestern University Medical School, "Neural correlates of interactions between motivation and visual spatial attention is Alzheimer's disease, mild cognitive impairment and healthy aging," $35,000
• Robert Struble, Ph.D., SIU School of Medicine, "Estrogen replacement and synaptic density," $29,604
• Madelyn Iris, Ph.D., Northwestern University, "Los Caminos: Pathways to Alzheimer's disease - identifying factors that promote or inhibit early detection in Hispanic elders," $20,000

Contributions to Illinois' voluntary income tax funds must raise a minimum of $100,000 by October 1 each year to remain on the IL-1040 forms. As of July 5, Illinois taxpayer donations to the Alzheimer's Disease Research Fund stood at more than $169,000, ensuring that the fund will appear on this year's Illinois tax forms (2002 taxes, payable in 2003) for the 18th consecutive year.