NOTE: Also see, TARC Report: Meeting the Alzheimer's Challenge (Summer 2010)

In 1999, the 76th Texas Legislature enacted Chapter 154, Texas Education Code, mandating that the Texas Council on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders establish the Texas Alzheimer's Research Consortium (TARC) comprised of four major medical research institutions:

• Baylor College of Medicine in Houston

• Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock

• The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas
  

• University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth

• The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

The first state funding for Alzheimer's research in Texas history was approved in 2005 by the 79th Texas Legislature, which appropriated $2 million to fund the Texas Alzheimer's Research Consortium's (TARC) first two years of set-up, volunteer recruitment, and data collection.  In 2007, Texas lawmakers nearly doubled the state's initial investment in the Consortium.

The TARC has now recruited more than 800 volunteers from across the state to participate in cutting-edge research to isolate and identify:

• Genetic factors associated with the onset of Alzheimer's disease, and

• Biological markers for inflammation, cardiovascular disease, risk factors for heart disease, and failure to control blood sugar (diabetes) that impact the development and progression of Alzheimer's disease.

The Texas Alzheimer's Research Consortium already has established the large shared Texas Alzheimer's DataBank that includes standardized genetic and blood biomarker data on Alzheimer's patients and healthy control subjects seen at each of the TARC member sites.

In 2009, state lawmakers approved another $12.75 million in funding for the TARC over the next two years to build on its early work, recruit more volunteers (including those with Mild Cognitive Impairment), and launch a new research focus on the impact of Alzheimer's disease on Hispanics.  The addition of The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio to the TARC will facilitate Hispanic recruitment -- and make it possible for Texas to assume a national leadership role in this underserved area of Alzheimer's research.