Welcome to the IND

The United States is facing an epidemic of dementia. Currently, there is not a single effective medicine that halts or even slows any neurodegenerative disease. Founded in 1999, the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases is committed to creating therapeutics that will halt diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and dementia resulting from traumatic brain injuries. Located in the state-of-the-art Sandler Neurosciences Center at the University of California San Francisco, the IND is at the forefront of discovering diagnostics and therapeutics that will provide relief to those suffering from neurodegenerative diseases that, in the words of British novelist and Alzheimer’s patient Terry Pratchett, can “strip away your living self a bit at a time.” If we are hopeful about the long-term prospects of the battle against dementia, it is because our laboratories have an edge. For decades we have led the field in basic research on prions and other protein abnormalities and are now applying our time-tested approach to the wave of dementia that threatens our nation.