July 21, 2009

The Center of Excellence (COE) on Brain Aging at NYU Langone Medical Center inaugurates a new facility this week at 145 East 32nd Street. The state-of-the-art, 15,000-square foot facility empowers collaboration, uniting the COE's existing clinical care centers with well-established clinical research programs focused on healthy brain aging, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and other neurodegenerative cognitive disorders.  Patient services, clinical trials and clinical research will be located on the second floor, which is patient-focused in layout, with patient-friendly exam rooms. The Pearl Barlow Center for Memory Evaluation and Treatment and the NYU Parkinson and Movement Disorders Center as well as clinical research programs will be situated on the second floor. Patients will benefit from the facility's advanced technological capabilities, such as a psychometric testing lab and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) lab.  Also relocating to the new premises will be the nationally funded NYU Alzheimer's Disease Center (ADC), an essential component of the COE.

The fifth floor will serve as the COE's nucleus. Wired and wireless, this floor will be the hub, bringing clinicians and clinical researchers together regularly over cross-disciplinary projects, in-person and through video-conferencing capability.  The center's renowned basic research programs will continue to exist at 550 First Avenue.

"Researchers and clinicians working side by side will be able to combine efforts through closer networking, shared instrumentation, and enhanced database linkages. This will align basic and preclinical research more closely with clinical diagnosis and treatment," said Ralph A. Nixon, PhD, MD, director of the COE on Brain Aging. "Collaboration on this level allows us to create an unprecedented translational research capability, accelerating delivery of innovative therapies from the lab bench to the patient's bedside."

About the Center of Excellence on Brain Aging

The Center of Excellence on Brain Aging (http://aging.med.nyu.edu) is devoted to research and clinical advances toward the treatment and cure of all neurodegenerative diseases affecting cognition, with expertise in healthy brain aging, Alzheimer's disease and memory disorders, Parkinson's disease and movement disorders, atypical dementias, and geriatric psychiatry. The COE was founded upon the strengths of NYU Langone's existing Silberstein Institute, which for decades has been devoted to the understanding, cure, and prevention of age-related cognitive decline through research, public education, and evidence-based clinical care.

Media Inquiries:

Lorinda Klein
212-404-3533 | 917-693-4846 cell | lorindaann.klein@nyumc.org