The Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute (ATRI) was founded by Paul S. Aisen, MD and a group of about 40 faculty and staff who had been working together for many years at the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS), which at the time was the primary National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded program conducting clinical trials in Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Located in San Diego and part of the University of Southern California (USC) Keck School of Medicine, the mission of ATRI is to accelerate the development of effective therapies for AD.
ATRI was designed to facilitate effective academic-industry collaborations with major administrative support from USC. Its structure is unique among USC institutes. The faculty members, while pursuing their own independent research, are all actively involved in the institute’s primary mission, and so constitute a well-aligned research team. The expertise at ATRI is multidimensional, with world renowned scientists and a research team across multiple disciples working together within a team science environment in the systematic pursuit of establishing the most innovative and collaborative global clinical trials program in AD therapeutics. This highly experienced research team, with expertise in biomarkers, biostatistics, clinical monitoring, clinical operations, finance, informatics, regulatory, recruitment, and medical safety, and an independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board, allows ATRI to efficiently conduct international multicenter clinical trials and other large clinical research studies . The embedded USC human resources and contracting enable efficient large-scale operations.
