Saykin Lab

Alongside Kwangsik Nho, PhD, Saykin is collaborating with Mayo Clinic in Florida to lead a new 5-year, $41 million study what will help better understand the biological pathways underlying Alzheimer's disease. CLEAR-AD, or Centrally-linked Longitudinal Peripheral Biomarkers of AD, will ultimately create more personalized patient care, enabling earlier and less-invasive diagnosis.

Since 2013, Saykin has been the director of the Indiana Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (IADRC), which has been a leader in Alzheimer's disease research for 35 years. The IADRC is one of only 37 centers in the U.S. solely committed to Alzheimer’s research and receives millions in NIH-funding each year.

The Korean Brain Aging Study for the Early Diagnosis and Prediction of AD (KBASE) is a comprehensive prospective cohort study launched at Seoul National University in 2014. It involves the systematic longitudinal collection of comprehensive clinical, cognitive and lifestyle data, multimodal neuroimaging (MRI/MRA, DTI, rsfMRI, amyloid, tau and FDG PET), and bio-specimens in Korea. The KBASE cohort consists of well-characterized participants including cognitively normal controls with a wide age range (20 to 90 years), mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease dementia. IU School of Medicine is collaborating with SNU to lead the project and conduct comprehensive analysis and harmonization on the KBASE dataset.

For many years, Saykin has been involved in the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), which brings together researchers and their study data from across the country as they work to define the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers collect, validate and utilize data, including MRI and PET images, genetics, cognitive tests, CSF and blood biomarkers as predictors of the disease. 

The Indiana Memory and Aging Study (IMAS) is an observational longitudinal study that aims to investigate key biological processes during early stages of Alzheimer's and validate early prognostic biomarkers for earlier detection of people at risk of disease. It seeks to determine the temporal relationships and interactions among pathophysiological domains, which combination of baseline markers is most predictive of clinical and MRI progression on follow-up, and the stage-specific profile of functional disruption of brain activity and connectivity, tau and amyloid burden, microvascular pathology, neurodegeneration, and inflammation in preclinical and prodromal Alzheimer's disease.

The AI-Powered Coordinating Center (AICC) is a joint project led by Yale University and Indiana University, funded by a five-year, $9.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Institute on Aging. The AICC)will serve as the national hub for the NIA’s AITC program, coordinating activities across the five AITC centers to promote integration, collaboration, and efficient program management. The AICC will use AI-enabled infrastructure to streamline administration, facilitate information and data sharing, strengthen commercialization and regulatory pathways, and support centralized award management, review, and progress tracking. Through sustained engagement with older adults, caregivers, and community partners, the AICC will promote the development and adoption of accessible, responsive technologies while catalyzing translation of AITC discoveries into real-world applications.