Our research aims to improve understanding of how changes in our bodies that accumulate across life affect the development of risk for aging-related disease, with a focus on Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias. Specifically, our work aims to identify aging-related changes in a range of physical and molecular characteristics, understand how genetic variation affects these age-dependent characteristics at different stages of life, and integrate this information into a predictive model that can inform risk assessment, prognosis, prevention, and intervention. To accomplish these aims, we will analyze genetic, laboratory-test, and electronic-medical record data from hundreds of thousands of adults followed prospectively over decades of life. Our work will pioneer new methods for analyzing these complex data and apply these methods to generate new discoveries, with the goal of advancing efforts to prevent and treat aging-related disease, especially Alzheimer’s disease and other dementing illnesses of later life.
