It’s been an awfully nerve-wracking time to await word on federal research grants. But the silver tsunami is upon us, and the feds seem to know it, and investigators at UC Irvine breathed a huge sigh of relief when a $21 million grant from the National Institute on Aging was renewed.

The five-year award announced July 15 will support UCI MIND’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, which has been studying memory impairments, sharing its knowledge and educating us little folks for more than 40 years (see tips on keeping your brain healthy below).

“We’re experiencing this wonderful period of rapid evolution in our field,” said Joshua Grill, Ph.D., director of UCI MIND (Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders) and co-director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center. “The new treatments represent the most obvious and important ones in clinical practice, but they’re not the only things that have changed. We have new tools to support diagnosis, many now FDA approved, and we need to make sure everyone benefits from these advances.”

As this humble scribe expects to be part of the silver tsunami, we’re rooting for the next big breakthroughs, and UC Irvine will surely play its part. Its Alzheimer’s Disease Research Institute was established way back in 1984, one of the first five federally designated Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers in the nation. That network has grown to include 35 centers teasing out exactly why some brains become diseased and others don’t, and precisely how to keep them healthy, and how to slow, stop or perhaps even reverse decline when it happens.

“I’m really thinking about future of ADRC and UCI MIND, about maximizing the impact we make with our science,” Grill said. “We want to begin the next chapter of translational research that we hope will reinvent clinical practice.”

Ah yes, we hope so too. California is on the cusp of an unprecedented demographic shift, with the number of folks 65 and older skyrocketing by 59% over the next 15 years. Dementia cases are expected to skyrocket along with it.

Alzheimer’s is linked to a buildup of two proteins in the brain: beta-amyloid and tau, researchers say. Plaques of beta-amyloid accumulate between nerve cells. Tangles of tau build up inside nerve cells. Cells can no longer communicate and are ultimately destroyed. Death usually occurs within 10 years.

UCI’s ADRC brings research directly to the community through clinical trials, educational programs and partnerships that empower people to make informed decisions, officials said. It’s the neighborhood hub for the latest information on brain health and aging, and is part of the NIH-funded Alzheimer’s Clinical Trials Consortium. Thousands of locals (including this one) have joined its Consent-to-Contact Registry, which connect folks to clinical studies they might be interested in, or can contribute to. It has generated more than 10,000 referrals, officials said, “greatly accelerating the pace of research and giving community members a straightforward way to contribute to scientific progress.”

The new grant also will fund initiatives to train the next generation of dementia researchers and clinicians and will deepen community ties through outreach, recruitment and public education programs, officials said.

The work is supported by the National Institute on Aging (part of the National Institutes of Health, which has been canceling grants for research willy-nilly as of late). UCI officials say the renewal confirms the center’s status as a global research leader, as well as its critical role in addressing a growing public health crisis.

“This renewed funding reflects the exceptional work of numerous UC Irvine clinicians and scientists dedicated to studying dementia-causing diseases,” said Frank LaFerla, Ph.D. and co-director of the ADRC, in a prepared statement. “It highlights UC Irvine’s cross-disciplinary commitment to addressing one of today’s most pressing health challenges.”

And cross-disciplinary it is. UCI MIND’s work involves more than 60 faculty members from more than 20 different departments, including neuroscience, psychiatry, geriatrics, statistics and public health, looking at memory disorders from myriad different angles.

UCI’s was the first ADRC to establish a bank of “induced pluripotent stem cells,” which are reprogrammed from small samples of skin or blood, enabling researchers to generate different types of brain cells in the lab so they can study disease progression and test new treatments. Researchers here also have studied disease in the oldest of the old, and in people with Down syndrome, who are at significantly higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

“We widely share data, tissue and knowledge to accelerate science beyond the proverbial walls of the ADRC at UCI, not just nationally but internationally,” Grill said. There are about 1,500 brains in its brain bank, and it has sent brain tissue as far as Australia.

The big breakthroughs in the field as of late include the ability to test for precursors to disease — something he approaches with great caution — as well as drugs to potentially slow its progress. But Grill warns against “the tyranny of treatment” and stresses that there’s still no way to prevent or cure Alzheimer’s, and folks should be wary of charlatans who claim otherwise.

“We talk about lowering your risk, maintaining your brain heath, and anyone who suggests there’s a way to cure or reverse it is lying,” he said. “They’re preying on the desperation people feel. We endeavor to be the community’s place to get answers.”

There’s a blog. And podcasts. And a newsletter.

So, how can you keep your brain as healthy as possible? Exercise regularly. Eat healthy food, including fish and dark green, leafy vegetables. Remain socially active and cognitively engaged. If you have health conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes, work with a doctor to get them under control. And a good night’s sleep, we’re learning, is critical to brain health, so see a sleep doctor if you have problems.

And, if you want to help science advance, consider joining thousands in the volunteer Consent-to-Contact Registry. We did! We hope to leave our brain to science, where it might finally do an honest day’s work. It always loved biology.