For over 20 years Dr. Margaret Pericak-Vance, Dr. Jonathan Haines and their teams have been researching various human conditions with the help of the Amish communities in Ohio and Indiana in hopes of finding answers to help treat or cure these conditions.
The first study focused on dementia and this community continues to help us as we study this condition. Both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the risk for Alzheimer’s disease, yet despite vast research efforts, including sophisticated genetic sequencing, well over 50 percent of the genetic basis remains unexplained. However, the focus of almost all of these studies has been on identifying genetic variants that increase risk; studies designed to identify genetic variants that may protect from Alzheimer’s are far less common.