Dr. Tiffany Hensley-McBain of the McLaughlin Research Institute in Great Falls has been awarded a National Institutes of Health grant award of about $3.1 million over five years for her work to understand Alzheimer’s disease and translate findings to clinical applications that may help those with Alzheimer’s disease across Montana and beyond, according to McLaughlin.

Her project is titled “Investigating neutrophilic inflammation as an APOE genotype-specific mediator of neuroinflammation and cognitive decline in aging.”

McLaughlin received two NIH grants totalling $3,628,886, according the NIH award database.

Hensley-McBain grew up in Great Falls, completed her undergraduate degree at Montana State University and her doctoral and postdoctoral work at the University of Washington.

She returned to Great Falls as an assistant professor at McLaughlin in 2021.

McLaughlin Research Institute in Great Falls receives $13.8 million federal grant

Hensley-McBain is working to understand age-related immunological and genetic factors that are risk factors for Alzheimer’s.

Hensley-McBain said in a release that those with two copies of the APOE4 gene are 12 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those with two copies of the APOE3 version of that gene, but the way different APOE gene alleles mediate Alzheimer’s risk is unclear.

Studies suggest that different APOE genotypes result in altered inflammatory responses that may lead to neuroinflammation, neural damage and cognitive decline in those with APOE4, she said.

Her latest NIH grant is funding a study to test the theory that neutrophils, an inflammatory cell type that can damage tissue, plays a role in neuroinflammation in those with APOE4 and determine if and how neutrophils could be targeted in those with APOE4 who have Alzheimer’s or are at risk for the disease, according to McLaughlin.

Hensley-McBain received an NIH grant for similar research in 2022.

MRI receives $5 million donation from former intern [2021]

Earlier this year, McLaughlin received a $13.8 million NIH grant to launch the Center for Integrated Biomedical and Rural Health Research and expand their research enterprise over the next five years.

Dr. Renee Reijo Pera, director, is the principal investigator under the grant.

The new research center is part of the NIH Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence nationwide network and is the first center of excellence grant to be awarded outside the state’s major universities in Bozeman and Missoula, according to a McLaughlin release.

The centers are funded through three competitive phases of five years each.

University of Providence, McLaughlin Research Institute partnering for teaching lab space [2019]

“The focus on integrated biomedical and rural health research will enable recruitment of additional healthcare researchers and build cohesiveness around a common goal to address rural health in a multi-disciplinary fashion that includes basic, translational, and clinical studies,” according to McLaughlin’s release.

The center at McLaughlin is a collaboration between faculty in the established partnership with Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine-Montana and seeks to provide research opportunities and participation in clinical trials for Montanans, according to McLaughlin.

The center will also recruit additional healthcare researchers and support the expansion of research infrastructure with initial projects focused on neurological diseases, according to McLaughlin.

The projects are led by Hensley-McBain, Dr. Mikael Klingeborn, Dr. Moses Leavens and Dr. Andrea Grindeland.

They’ll focus on Alzheimer’s disease, age-related macular degeneration, Parkinson’s disease and chronic wasting disease.