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Each of the following five major medical research institutions participating in the Texas Alzheimer’s Research Consortium is represented on a Steering Committee of leading Alzheimer’s researchers:
Baylor College of Medicine
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center
University of North Texas Health Science Center
The University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
The Steering Committee sets research priorities and policies, and works with Consortium staff to coordinate data collection, research activities, and reporting of findings among the participating medical schools and health science centers.
About two dozen AD researchers from across Texas participate in the Consortium’s work. Many serve on TARC’s Biomarker, Genetics and Neuropsychology Subcommittees. TARC Project Coordinator Jim Hinds and Dr. Robert Barber, TARC Scientific Coordinator, provide staff support to ensure the Consortium’s research goals are met.
Baylor College of Medicine, Houston
Rachelle Doody, M.D., Ph.D., is the Effie Marie Cain Chair in Alzheimer’s Disease Research, and Professor of Neurology in the Department of Neurology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. She received a Ph.D. in Cognitive Anthropology from Rice University where she studied the brain and language. She earned a M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine, and completed her internship and residency training there and at the Royal Victoria Hospital and Montreal Neurologic Institute in Montreal. She has authored more than 100 publications, most of which deal with the diagnosis, progression, or treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders, and is a featured speaker at national and international conferences devoted to research on AD and other dementias. She has received multiple research grants, including a Zenith Award from the National Alzheimer’s Association.
Primary Research Interests: Cognitive aspects of Alzheimer's disease, dementia, and aphasia; Alzheimer's disease therapeutics and modeling of progression for clinical prognostication, validation of biological markers, and enhancing design of AD clinical trials.
TARC Scientific Committees: Steering Committee
Dr. Doody's publications on PubMed
Curriculm Vitae
TARC Research Team at Baylor College of Medicine (coming soon)
Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock
 Sid E. O'Bryant, Ph.D.,is Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology and the Director of Research for the F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. Since 2005, he has served as Co-Director of The Memory Shoppe and serves as an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Texas Tech University and as an affiliate health staff member at the University Medical Center. He is the primary investigator for the Cocharan County Aging Study and is working on several research projects associated with aging in ethnically diverse rural communities. Dr. O'Bryant completed his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, with emphasis in neuropsychology, at the University at Albany, State University of New York; a neuropsychology internship at the University of Mississippi Medical Center/Jackson VA consortium; and his residency at the New Orleans VA Medical Center.
Primary Research Interests: Biomarkers of Alzheimer’s disease, inflammatory and other biomarker mediators of cognitive functioning, ethnicity and AD, cognitive aging, and the links between cardiovascular disease and cognitive decline in aging populations.
TARC Scientific Committees: Steering Committee, Biomarker Subcommittee, Neuropsychology Subcommittee
Dr. O'Bryant's publications on PubMed
Curriculum Vitae
TARC Research Team at TTUHSC (coming soon)
The University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio
 Donald R. Royall, M.D., is Chief of the Division of Aging and Geriatric Psychiatry, the Julia and Van Buren Parr Professor of Geriatric Psychiatry, and a professor in the departments of Medicine and Pharmacology at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Dr. Royall has developed two widely used Executive Cognitive Function measures, CLOX: An Executive Clock-drawing Task and the Executive Interview (EXIT25), which are important predictors of independent living skills, decision making and adherence to treatment. Dr. Royall is an investigator in the Women’s Health Initiative and the Hispanic Established Population for Epidemiological Studies in the Elderly (HEPESE). He also supervises residents and geriatric fellows at the Audie L. Murphy Memorial Veterans Hospital’s Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center. Dr. Royall received his medical degree from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and completed residency training in both Internal Medicine and Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD.
Primary Research Interests: Cognitive predictors of mortality focusing on conditions that affect right hemisphere brain functions, including stroke, Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Lewy Body disease (LBD) and normal aging.
TARC Scientific Committees: Steering Committee, Neuropsychology Subcommittee
Dr. Royall's publications on PubMed
Curriculum Vitae
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas
 Perrie M. Adams, Ph.D., is the Associate Dean for Research and the Margaret D. Harris Professor in Alzheimer's Research in the Department of Psychiatry at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. He is also Acting Chair of the Department of Biomedical Communications. Currently, Dr. Adams is co-principal investigator for the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Southwestern and for the National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Curriculum Program in Patient-Oriented Research. He is a long-time member and former Chairman of Southwestern Medical Center's Institutional Review Board. Dr. Adams received his Ph.D. in Psychology from Florida State University and previously taught in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Pharmacology and Toxicology at The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
Primary Research Interests: Alzheimer's disease, genetic toxicology, developmental biology
TARC Scientific Committees: Steering Committee
Curriculum Vitae
TARC Research Team at UT Southwestern Medical Center (coming soon)
University of North Texas Health Science Center, Fort Worth
 Thomas J. Fairchild, Ph.D., is Vice President of the Office of Strategy and Measurement at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth. He is also a member of the health science center's Information Resources Advisory Council and a faculty member of the School of Public Health. Since 1997, Dr. Fairchild has served as Director of Special Projects on Aging and, from 1997 to 2003, directed the Geriatrics Education and Research Institute at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. He currently serves on the Board of The Institute for Optimal Aging and is a past delegate to the White House Conference on Aging. He completed his Ph.D. in Sociology with a specialization in aging from Wayne State University.
Primary Research Interests: Gerontology with an emphasis on retirement housing, long-term care, and health services management
TARC Scientific Committees: Steering Committee
Dr. Fairchild's Publications on PubMed
Curriculum Vitae
TARC Research Team at UNTHSC (coming soon)
TARC Scientific Coordinator, Staff
 Robert Barber, Ph.D., Associate Professor at The University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth & Adjunct Faculty member at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, is the Scientific Coordinator for the Texas Alzheimer's Research Consortium. Dr. Barber's research efforts focus on identifying biomarkers and genetic variation that impacts risk for complex human disease, including the host response to burn and severe trauma as well as traumatic brain injury. His research approach involves traditional bench work in molecular biology, as well as novel statistical modeling and bioinformatics techniques. After graduating from Tulane University with a degree in biology, Dr. Barber earned both a Masters of Science degree in Marine Biology and a Ph.D. in genetics from Texas A&M University. After a post-doctoral fellowship, he served as an Assistant Professor at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, leaving in 2001 to serve as co-Director of the genetics laboratory in the Center for Conservation and Research at Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo. He joined the faculty of UT Southwestern Medical Center in 2002.
Primary Research Interests: Resolving the influence of genetic variation upon the inflammatory response to acute injury, and exploring the link between inflammation and dementia.
TARC Scientific Committees: Steering Committee, Genetics Subcommittee, Biomarker Subcommittee, Neuropsychology Subcommittee
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