April 24, 2006
BIRMINGHAM, AL — The Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Institute at UAB (University of Alabama at Birmingham) will be formally dedicated at ceremonies in the Richard C. and Annette N. Shelby Interdisciplinary Biomedical Research Building at 3:45 p.m. today (Monday, April 24).
Focusing on age-related memory loss, the institute was established with an initial $5 million gift from the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Research Foundation, of Orlando, Florida, followed last November by an additional $1 million.
The institute is headed by David Sweatt, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Neurobiology and holder of the Evelyn F. McKnight Endowed Chair for Learning and Memory in Aging at UAB. McKnight Foundation support was critical to UAB’s ability to recruit Sweatt, an internationally respected neurobiologist and former veteran faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston.
Scientists at the institute are investigating the fundamental mechanisms of human memory, focusing particularly on problems of age-related memory loss. The long-term objective is to translate basic biomedical research into treatments, medications and other techniques that can minimize the effects of aging on learning and memory.
“The aged population is growing daily, and by the year 2030 it is estimated that nearly 25 percent of Americans will be 65 or older — with millions suffering from some form of memory loss,” said J. Lee Dockery, a McKnight Foundation trustee. “Finding the answer to this important health care problem could benefit every member of our society.”
“The McKnight Brain Institute and the endowed chair are front and center to UAB’s ability to take its rightful place at the cutting edge of one of the most exciting fields in bioscience today,” said Robert R. Rich, M.D., senior vice president and dean of the UAB School of Medicine. “We are incredibly indebted to the trustees of the foundation for their investment in helping the UAB School of Medicine explore the increasingly urgent need to far better understand age-related memory loss.”
Established in 1999 by Evelyn Franks McKnight, the Evelyn F. McKnight Brain Research Foundation supports research toward the understanding of memory and the specific influences of aging on memory. McKnight, who was a nurse, shared her husband’s belief that “research is the key to tomorrow.”
She and William L. McKnight, chair of the Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing (3M) Corporation for 59 years prior to his death in 1978, were particularly interested in the effects of aging on memory.
The gifts provide for faculty salaries, purchase of laboratory instrumentation, pilot research funding, and other scholarly activities related to their research and study.