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Jonathan Kipnis, Ph.D., with Ardyce Bohlke, executive director of Nebraska’s Dollars for Scholars, a network of community-based, volunteer-operated scholarship foundations. |
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Jane Potter, M.D., left, section chief of geriatrics and gerontology in UNMC’s Department of Internal Medicine, with honoree Heather Titman, M.D. |
Heather Titman, M.D., explores how to improve end-of-life clinical care of patients with the neurological disease.
The two paused recently to receive this year’s Alzheimer’s research awards established by the late Col. Barney Oldfield for their promising and innovative work.
Dr. Kipnis received the eighth Vada Kinman Oldfield Alzheimer’s Research Fund Award, which is given annually to an individual with a promising new idea in Alzheimer’s research.
Dr. Titman received the second Nancy and Ronald Reagan Alzheimer’s Scholarship Fund Award, which recognizes investigators pursuing promising, innovative work in Alzheimer’s research.
Dr. Kipnis is researching whether the decline in immune activity known to be associated with several mental and neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease, might account, in part, for the cognitive dysfunction observed in these patients. He is an assistant professor of pharmacology and ophthalmology and senior staff science and chief of the Laboratory of Neuroprotection in UNMC’s Center for Neurovirology and Neurodegenerative Disorders.
Dr. Kipnis earned his doctoral degree in neurobiology/neuroimmunology from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, in 2004.
Dr. Titman is pursuing a fellowship in geriatrics at UNMC. She earned her medical degree at Creighton University in 2002 and then completed a family practice residency at UNMC, with an emphasis on rural medicine. She has directed her research interests toward end-of-life care in elderly patient with dementia. Her study will identify indicators that predict six-month mortality in out-patient elders with dementia in hopes of better facilitating end-of-life care.
The Oldfield research award carries a $10,000 stipend. The late Col. Barney Oldfield established the research fund at UNMC in 1999 in honor of his wife, who died that year after an 11-year battle with Alzheimer’s disease. In addition to the $10,000 annual award, the principal of the endowment is increased by $10,000 each year. A Nebraska native, Col. Oldfield said once a cure is found, the money would be redirected to battle other disorders of old age.
The Reagan scholarship fund carries a $5,000 stipend. The Kinman-Oldfield Family foundation established the award to honor the late president, who battled Alzheimer’s for 10 years. Oldfield met Reagan in 1939 and later became his publicist.