Washington University in St. Louis has announced an $11.5 million gift from Joanne Knight to its School of Medicine in support of efforts to prevent Alzheimer’s disease by treating people before the first signs of the illness appear in the brain.

The commitment includes a challenge gift to match dollar-for-dollar up to $6.5 million in additional pledges to the school’s Alzheimer’s prevention initiative. The funds will support a four-year clinical trial designed to determine whether early treatment can forestall the cascade of molecular brain changes that eventually lead to memory loss and cognitive decline — changes that typically begin two decades before the onset of dementia. The study will recruit young adults with a rare genetic mutation that predisposes them to develop the disease in their fifties, forties, or even thirties, and begin treatment with a drug designed to block the buildup of amyloid in the brain before brain changes become evident in scans and tests.

In recognition of the gift and the Knight family’s longtime support for Alzheimer’s research, the university’s Alzheimer’s prevention initiative will be named the Knight Family Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network-Trials Unit (Knight Family DIAN-TU). Knight’s husband, Chuck, died from complications of Alzheimer’s in 2017, and his father and Joanne’s mother both died of the illness.

“I have coped with the realities of Alzheimer’s disease in my family for the majority of my adult life,” said Knight. “Chuck always believed that if you didn’t like something, you do something about it — and he didn’t like Alzheimer’s. That’s why we first started funding Alzheimer’s research at Washington University. Chuck would be so thrilled by the trials going on now. I am glad to have the opportunity to support clinical trials to preemptively halt Alzheimer’s disease in people.”

(Photo credit: Washington University in St. Louis)