More than 5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s. This has profound implications for Arizona, with a population of more than 1 million people over age 65 living today that is expected to expand to 2.4 million by 2050.

To address this challenge, the Arizona State University, one of the nation’s largest public research universities, and Phoenix-based Banner Health, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health systems, have launched a research alliance to advance the scientific study, treatement and prevention of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegeneratives diseases.

The partnership includes the establishment of the Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center on ASU’s Tempe campus. Expected to become one of the world's largest basic science centers for the study of Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases and attract the top minds in these fields, the center is an extension of the partners' work with the Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium, a leading model of statewide collaboration in biomedical research.