Research Education Component Core
With the aging population and the related increase in individuals suffering from Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD), a parallel increase in the research workforce is needed to continue our progress toward achieving the National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease NAPA goals and the National AD research agenda.
The goal of the Research Education Component (REC) Core of the North Texas Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (NT-ADRC) is to develop and enhance research educational and training activities in support of future generations of the research workforce to address the national need for high-quality investigators engaged in transformative and multidisciplinary research.
The REC Core focuses on helping early-stage investigators by:
- Enrolling and developing them from diverse backgrounds in its training programs
- Promoting their careers
- Supporting their growth toward independence
Our activities and programs are geared toward meeting the overall goal of the NT-ADRC: examining the role of hypertension and other cardiometabolic factors and underlying molecular mechanisms in the pre- and early-symptomatic phases of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD), developing innovative biomarkers for these stages, and identifying potential therapeutic targets.
We leverage an extremely robust set of local research educational resources spanning strong neuroscience and world-renowned cardiovascular research programs, unique strengths in biomedical engineering, data sciences, and informatics, state-of-the-art neuroimaging, and successful clinical and translational research in AD therapeutics at UT Southwestern and our member institutions.
Education and Training
The NT-ADRC REC program is designed to mentor new or early-stage investigators to advance toward independence in AD/ADRD research.
The REC curriculum includes a set of activities developed by the NT-ADRC in addition to resources leveraged by the institution or training partners and collaborators.
REC Scholars are enrolled for one to two years. Their REC program includes mentoring as well as a combination of experiential and synchronous and asynchronous educational activities.
REC Leaders, in conjunction with REC committee members who possess diverse skills and backgrounds, oversee the activities of the program, address barriers to success, and evaluate the Scholars to ensure they accomplish their career goals and the program to ensure it accomplishes its overall mission.
We identify the REC Scholars from multiple training programs (Behavioral Neurology, Neuropsychiatry, Cardiology, Hypertension, Neuropathology, Clinical Informatics, and Geriatrics fellowships), and doctorate programs (Neuropsychology, Neuroscience, Social Work, and Biomedical Engineering).
Collaboration
The REC Core serves as a training hub by interacting with the other NT-ADRC cores and linking with national REC resources to provide outstanding AD research training.
Core Faculty
- Core Co-Lead, Education
- Professor of Cardiology & Hypertension
- UT Southwestern Medical Center
- Core Lead, Education
- Professor of Neurology
- UT Southwestern Medical Center