News Release
Einstein to Co-Lead $39 Million National Initiative to Prevent Dementia and Promote Mid-Life Brain Health
September 25, 2025 (BRONX, NY)
Albert Einstein College of Medicine is co-leading a new national initiative aimed at transforming how scientists and clinicians detect the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias (ADRD).
The National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging has awarded a five-year, $39 million grant for the initiative, called the Open Measures Network Initiative for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementia Research and Prevention (OMNI ADRD). Scientists at Einstein are collaborating in the network with counterparts at Penn State, the University of Southern California, and the Many Brains Project, a nonprofit research group.
“One of the biggest challenges in dementia research is figuring out who is at risk and who could benefit most from early interventions,” said Laura Germine, Ph.D., project co-lead and associate professor in the Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology. “This initiative will allow us to develop tools that can detect subtle changes in cognitive function that are early signs of chronic brain conditions like ADRD that begin silently before symptoms emerge.” Dr. Germine is also founding director of the department’s new division of brain and cognitive health technology.
Dr. Germine noted that OMNI ADRD aims to modernize and coordinate various measures of brain health across the research community and bring those tools into real-world settings such as clinics, community programs, and mobile health platforms. The assessment tools, including digital biomarkers, cognitive tests, and wearable sensors, will provide uniform data to allow large-scale tracking and evaluation of neuropsychological changes for research conducted on people during midlife.
Among the research network’s goals is the creation of an open digital platform that hosts scientifically vetted tools for assessing cognitive and behavioral changes over time, along with scoring systems and other tools to help scientists and physicians incorporate the measures broadly into their labs and practices.
“The annual cost of dementia-related medical and long-term care is expected to exceed $360 billion this year,” said Dr. Germine. “To meaningfully reduce this cost, we must ensure that the tools that support dementia prevention are accessible to research and patient communities everywhere. Our focus on open measurement tools will support that broad accessibility.”
OMNI ADRD’s other co-leaders are: Martin Sliwinski, Ph.D., at the Penn State Center for Healthy Aging; Sy-Miin Chow, Ph.D., at the College of Health and Human Development at Penn State; and Duke Han, Ph.D., at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California. Other Einstein researchers participating in the network include Mindy Katz, M.P.H., senior staff scientist in the Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology; Cuiling Wang, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology & population health and in the Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology; and Jinshil Hyun, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology.
The NIH grant is titled “The NIH Precision Brain Health Network: Open and Inclusive Measurement of Neuropsychological Change for AD/ADRD Primary Prevention Trials” (1U24AG092760-01).
