An Alzheimer's study in South America offered tremendous insights. Then it was cut.

For three decades, professor Ken Kosik has been collaborating with researchers in the United States and Colombia to better understand the causes of Alzheimer's.

An extended family in that South American country has a devastating genetic variant that triggers early-onset dementia. "They get Alzheimer's at age 45 like clockwork," said Kosik, a professor of neuroscience at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The scientists have now studied more than 5,000 relatives and every one of them who had the mutation lost short-term memories and the ability to care for themselves.

Every family member so far ‒ except one.

Now, continued research into that woman and her family has been stopped by Trump administration budget cuts.

While no reason was given for the termination, the project was mostly conducted in Colombia, not the United States ‒ because the family's unique genetics means similar cases do not exist here.

When Kosik and his colleagues came across a 70-year-old family member a number of years ago, they were amazed to discover she had the mutation but no disease. When she died years later of skin cancer, her brain was full of the plaques characteristic of Alzheimer's ‒ first discovered by studying her relatives – but not the twisted threads of another protein, tau, that's also typically found in the brains of those with the disease.

A better understanding of this woman's mutation and others in this family, Kosik said, could offer clues for delaying the onset of Alzheimer's for others, including Americans, 7 million of whom currently have the disease. Medical and long-term care costs for people living with dementia are expected to reach $360 billion in 2024.

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