UK
The University of Kentucky (UK) MarkVCID site is located in Lexington, Kentucky and is led by Donna Wilcock, PhD, and Gregory Jicha, MD, PhD. Housed in the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, the University of Kentucky MarkVCID project brings together translational researchers and clinicians to validate novel biomarkers for cerebral small vessel disease. Dr. Wilcock is a basic and translational researcher who studies mechanisms of cerebrovascular pathologies in Alzheimer’s disease, VCID, and other related dementias. She serves as associate director of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging and leads the Biomarker Core for the UK-ADRC. Dr. Jicha is a behavioral neurologist and clinical trialist for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. He has led the UK-ADRC Clinical Core for more than a decade and oversees many multi-site clinical trials as well as investigator-initiated trials at UK.
Study Recruitment
In line with the demographics of our region, our goal is to enroll the following participants in MarkVCID2:
- 70 White participants
- 70 White participants from rural areas
- 66 Black/African American participants
- Members of other Under-Represented Groups (URGs), as possible
We will recruit participants from our existing Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) cohort, which includes nearly 650 established research participants. 137 people participated in MarkVCID through UK, and we estimate about 100 of them will enroll in MarkVCID2. In addition to existing research participants, we will also recruit new participants from the community, with special focus on members of Under-Represented Groups. UK has long-standing partnerships and well-developed outreach efforts aimed at engaging African American participants, such as the African American Dementia Outreach Partnership (AADOP). Faculty and staff from UK developed seminal educational and recruitment tools that are now used across the country, including the Book of Alzheimer’s for African American Churches, the Road to Memory Sunday, and the Memory Sunday Toolkit. We are also developing new outreach strategies through the No One Left Behind initiative, which uses community liaison partners to educate members of URGs about research engagement. The initiative focuses on engaging rural, African American, Hispanic and LGBTQIA+ Kentuckians.
Study Team
Co-investigators at the University of Kentucky include neuroimaging experts Brian Gold, PhD and Ahmed Bahrani, PhD, neuropathologist Peter Nelson, MD, PhD, biostatisticians Erin Abner, PhD and Richard Kryscio, PhD, neuropsychologist Frederick Schmitt, PhD, and stroke neurologist Larry Goldstein, PhD. Our outstanding research team includes Tiffany Lee Sudduth, Katherine Snyder, Barbara Martin, Angela Holloman, and Laurie Clewett, among others. The University of Kentucky team is highly collaborative and committed to validating novel biomarkers for MarkVCID.
