Michael Gracious
Appearances
The Rachel Maddow Show
From policy to personnel, Trump scores historically low poll numbers
Thanks for having me, Rachel. Thanks for covering this issue.
The Rachel Maddow Show
From policy to personnel, Trump scores historically low poll numbers
Well, yeah, first, I agree with you completely. I mean, Alzheimer's is sort of the ultimately nonpartisan disease, right? I think everybody knows somebody either in their family with Alzheimer's or has a friend with Alzheimer's in the family. It really affects everybody, Ohioans and Texans as frequently as Californians.
The Rachel Maddow Show
From policy to personnel, Trump scores historically low poll numbers
You know, this is the first round of cuts that we've seen at the NIH level for Alzheimer's research. This is the intramural program, sort of the flagship of the intramural program for Alzheimer's disease research. And it already, I think, reflects a big loss in terms of research infrastructure and the progress that's been made over the last three years since that intramural center was funded.
The Rachel Maddow Show
From policy to personnel, Trump scores historically low poll numbers
As just one example, they recently submitted a paper where they've done sort of state-of-the-art whole genome sequencing on more than 350 brains. So this is not just important research that's being done by investigators. This is also legacy data that reflects the research efforts of hundreds and thousands of participants over the years. It really has lots of rippling effects.
The Rachel Maddow Show
From policy to personnel, Trump scores historically low poll numbers
This is really just the intramural program we're talking about. There's a much larger extramural program that supports Alzheimer's disease research across the country. It's unclear whether that's also at risk. I think that would be even more devastating.
The Rachel Maddow Show
From policy to personnel, Trump scores historically low poll numbers
Right. Well, so the intramural center that we're talking about is one center. For example, there are 35 Alzheimer's disease research centers that the NIH funds across the country, across a whole patchwork of states. One of the best is in Missouri, for example. North Carolina has a great couple of these centers. So even if it's just the intramural program, that's going to be a huge loss.
The Rachel Maddow Show
From policy to personnel, Trump scores historically low poll numbers
My lab, as you mentioned, does research on the genetics of Alzheimer's disease. Those 350 genomes that are derived from brain tissue are incredibly valuable. And of course, they're being publicly shared as a research resource. And that's a large part of what the NIH does, is sharing these hard-fought, hard-to-come-by databases and also biorepositories.
The Rachel Maddow Show
From policy to personnel, Trump scores historically low poll numbers
So brain banks, blood samples that have been, again, collected over decades. not something that you can shut down in a month and then decide a year from now to pick back up. I think there's real risk of a generation or more of data being lost. And this comes at a time when I think we're particularly close to making real headway against Alzheimer's disease, closer than we've been.
The Rachel Maddow Show
From policy to personnel, Trump scores historically low poll numbers
And that could be a five-year window before we get a definitive treatment, or if we really handicap the research infrastructure, that could be back to 20 years.
The Rachel Maddow Show
From policy to personnel, Trump scores historically low poll numbers
Likewise. Thank you, Rachel.