The NIA Genetics of Alzheimer’s Disease Data Storage Site (NIAGADS) at Penn Medicine has received funding renewal from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health. The award is expected to total $7.7 million over five years. NIAGADS is a one-stop portal that gathers, processes, and organizes massive stores of genetic (and limited, but significant, phenotypic) data and related findings for researchers to explore. This enables in-depth analysis, potentially leading to the discovery of causal genetic variants, disease mechanisms, drug targets, and possible prevention and cure strategies. The site receives data from NIA-funded and other Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease related dementias genetics studies nationwide that it shares with qualified investigators.

NIAGADS is managed by the Penn Neurodegeneration Genomics Center (PNGC) in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and directed by Gerard Schellenberg, PhD. Li-San Wang, PhD, co-director of PNGC, an associate professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and a faculty fellow of Penn’s Institute on Aging (IOA) and Institute of Biomedical Informatics (IBI), is the Principal Investigator of NIAGADS.
Read the Department of Communications news release.