A few miles from the beaches and golf courses, scientists at the Roskamp Institute are studying Alzheimer’s disease, traumatic brain injury, Gulf War illness and the effects of red tide, turning laboratory findings into treatments and prevention. “What we do in the lab translates into the clinic,” says Dr. Fiona Crawford, Roskamp’s president and CEO.

Roskamp opened in 2003, but its story begins in the 1990s, when Crawford and Dr. Michael Mullan were part of the London-based team that identified the first genetic causes of Alzheimer’s disease. That work helped pave the way for amyloid-targeting drugs approved in recent years, though Crawford says they’re “only really helpful” in the very earliest stages, and “there’s a lot more work to be done.”

Roskamp is now focusing on prevention and the broader disease process of Alzheimer’s. Crawford says lifestyle matters more than many people realize, and Roskamp’s Brain Reserve Index focuses on diet, exercise, mental activity and control of medical conditions such as diabetes and high cholesterol. With mental exercise, she says the goal is “challenging your brain” through hard crossword puzzles, demanding brain games or learning a new language. Prevention doesn’t require extremes. “You don’t have to be eating lettuce all the time and doing a marathon every day,” she says.

The institute also studies traumatic brain injury, which Crawford calls “a huge risk factor for later life Alzheimer’s disease,” along with post-traumatic stress disorder and Gulf War illness, in which patients experience a slew of  chronic symptoms that can include fatigue, headaches, joint pain, indigestion, insomnia, dizziness, respiratory disorders and memory problems. It has also moved findings into treatment: In Gulf War illness research, Crawford says one treatment tested on patients, a pill containing oleoylethanolamide (OEA), a “naturally occurring molecule in the body [that regulates] energy use, metabolism and communication between the gut and the brain,” reduced fatigue and improved quality of life.

For locals, the most immediate work may be on red tide. After neurologists reported some patients’ conditions seemed to worsen during blooms, Roskamp launched a pilot study with donations, recruiting residents, collecting blood samples and analyzing toxin exposure. That early work led to a two-year National Institute of Health (NIH) grant and then to a five-year NIH grant, a sign that questions about red tide’s impacts were big enough to move from local concern to federally funded research.

Roskamp is also planning a new clinic and Center for Brain Health. At the same time, the institute is expanding in-house clinical studies, including its red tide program and treatments for Gulf War veterans. Once construction is complete, expected toward the end of the year, the new center will support outside drug trials. Crawford says the Brain Reserve Index will be part of that effort, serving as a hub for classes and education, with virtual participation available, too.

More than 90 percent of Roskamp’s funding now comes from peer-reviewed grants from agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense, with 23 active grants.

Crawford says the institute is unusually collaborative: The labs are “functional” rather than siloed by scientists, and local students from USF Sarasota-Manatee, State College of Florida and New College of Florida intern there and move into paid research assistant roles after graduation. Roskamp’s Ph.D. students have come from other Florida colleges, and some graduates now lead research at the institute. Nineteen students have completed the Ph.D. program,
and others have gone on to positions at Harvard University,
the University of Pennsylvania, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Eli Lilly.