Alzheimer's Personal Statement

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I am contacting you to express my support of Dr. Marilyn Carter. Having followed her career since she began doctoral studies at Case Western Reserve University, I can personally attest to her innovations in the field of Alzheimer’s research.
First, I would like to offer my credentials, validating my endorsement of Dr. Carter. With a Bachelors degree in both Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of Michigan, I earned my doctorate in Neuroscience from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1979. Subsequently, I accepted a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard School of Medicine, in the Department of Neurobiology, where I studied for three years before becoming Professor of Neurosciences and Neurology at Case Western Reserve University. …show more content…

Although Alzheimer’s disease is sporadic in nature with no specific genetic cause, studies have identified Apolipoprotein E genetic variance as a major genetic risk factor for the disease. Apolipoprotein E alleles lead to increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease and act as an aggravating factor with regard to the disease’s progression. Dr. Carter, working under my supervision at Case Western Reserve University, has provided breakthroughs in therapy for Alzheimer’s disease that were previously unnoticed in the field of Alzheimer’s research.
As an undergraduate student, Dr. Carter earned her Bachelors degree and a Masters in Neuroscience from the Department of Zoology at Taiwan University. After earning her Masters, Dr. Carter gained admittance to Case Western Reserve University’s doctoral program in pursuit of her Ph.D in Neuroscience, with a focus on Alzheimer’s research. Dr. Carter’s studies, based on Apolipoprotein E genetic variance as a major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, have revolutionized Alzheimer …show more content…

Carter discovered that increasing Apolipoprotein E levels and lipidation in the Alzheimer afflicted brain helps to facilitate the elimination of Aβ—the aggregated protein that forms amyloid plaque in the Alzheimer afflicted brain—in mice. Additionally, she uncovered utilizing Bexarotene, which increases Apolipoprotein E expression and lipidation in the Alzheimer afflicted brain, serves as a catalyst to the reduction of the presence of Aβ in the Alzheimer brain. In testing her hypothesis, she was able to successfully reduce the presence of Aβ in the Alzheimer afflicted brains of mice, mitigating any neural deficits. Furthermore, she and a fellow graduate student invented a biochemical method to monitor the clearance of Aβ that has since become standard in Alzheimer therapy.
Over the past thirteen years, Dr. Carter’s work has been published in several academic journals and notable publications, including the Journal of Neuroscience, FEBS Journal, Science, and Neuron. In total, her publications have been cited over a thousand times. Additionally, she has presented at the Society for Neuroscience four times, in consecutive years between 2007 and 2010, as well as at the International Conference on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases in

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