Asian Cohort for Alzheimer's Disease (ACAD) - Project Summary
Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects 5.8 million people in the United States and is an immense burden on our
economy, patients and caregivers. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have successfully led to 25
genome-wide significant loci associated with AD risk and many more associations with key clinical covariates.
Most of these findings are made on participants with European ancestry, although efforts to study other
minority populations are taking off. Knowledge about AD genetics among Asian Americans is especially limited
due to lack of participants. Comprising 6% of the US populace, Asian Americans are under-sampled and
deserve more scientific investment.
We propose the Asian Cohort for Alzheimer's Disease (ACAD), the first large Alzheimer's Disease (AD)
genetics cohort for Asians in United States (US) and Canada. To optimize ACAD's success, we assembled a
team of scientists, clinicians, and community partners with collaborative history and expertise in AD research,
human genetics, and Asian community outreach. We propose to recruit 5,970 participants aged 60 years or
older and of Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese ancestry from metropolitan areas across the US and Canada in
collaboration with community partners, clinics, or nursing homes that serve Asian communities. We will collect
saliva for DNA and use validated, localized instruments, data forms, and clinical/diagnostic protocols. To
support these recruitment and data collection activities, we will set up a coordinating center and develop
governance, community outreach and training programs to support recruitment and analysis activities, and
conduct a process evaluation of the recruitment and outreach efforts. All samples will be genotyped using SNP
arrays and imputed using a large Asian-specific reference panel of whole genome sequencing data from
international Asian cohorts. We will analyze genetic and clinical data to investigate impact of lifestyle risk
factors, genetic variants for AD risk, evaluate differential effects of sex and APOE genotypes on AD risk, and
predict clinical diagnosis of AD using genetic and lifestyle risk scores. We will replicate these findings through
meta-analysis collaborations with international Asian cohorts and AD studies from other populations.
Comprising 6% of the US populace, Asian Americans are under-sampled and deserve more scientific
investment in Alzheimer's disease research. The ACAD project will build the first major AD genetics study for
Asians in the US and Canada. Successful completion will lead to new genetic and lifestyle screening markers
for Asian Americans and insights about novel therapeutic targets for AD. ACAD will be a first network for
recruiting and studying AD in Asian Americans that will extend to Asian Indians, Filipino and other Asian
American populations in the future, serving the unmet needs of Alzheimer's disease research for Asian
Americans.
