{"id":2315,"date":"2021-07-04T13:50:45","date_gmt":"2021-07-04T20:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/?p=2315"},"modified":"2026-08-30T22:14:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-31T05:14:59","slug":"hope-on-the-horizon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/hope-on-the-horizon\/","title":{"rendered":"Hope on the Horizon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chic<\/span><\/div>
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This article was printed in<\/em>
\nChic Compass Magazine - Issue 8<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>

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\"Hope<\/span><\/div><\/div>
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Hope on the Horizon<\/h1>\n

DR. KATE ZHONG & DR. JEFFREY CUMMINGS:
\nTHE LIKE-MINDED ALZHEIMER'S AMBASSADORS OF LAS VEGAS<\/p>\n

BY STACEY GUALANDI<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Alzheimer\u2019s patients and their loved ones have a renewed sense of hope now that the U.S. Food & Drug Administration approved the first Alzheimer\u2019s drug in nearly two decades.<\/p>\n

Dr. Kate Zhong, MD, MSC, FRCP (C), and her husband Dr. Jeffrey Cummings, MD, SCD, said the historic decision\u2014announced coincidentally in June during Alzheimer\u2019s and Brain Awareness month\u2014will give doctors the ability to treat patients with Biogen\u2019s Aducanumab (under the brand name Aduhelm) in the early phases of the irreversible, progressive brain disorder.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is great news for the world,\u201d says an enthusiastic Dr. Zhong. \u201cThe drug is not just tackling the symptoms, but it can potentially change the overall course of Alzheimer\u2019s disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adds Dr. Cummings, \u201cWe think we have turned the corner in the field of being able to slow Alzheimer\u2019s disease down.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>

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\"Dr.<\/span><\/div><\/div>

Dr. Kate Zhong & Dr. Jeffrey Cummings<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

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This watershed moment couldn\u2019t come soon enough for these Las Vegas-based brain experts. They have been on the frontline of the fight against this disease for decades and were the driving force behind the clinical trial that led to the drug\u2019s path to passage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the very best trial data that we have right now, these drugs slow the disease by about 50 percent, which is tremendous,\u201d says Dr. Cummings, a key advisor to Biogen. \u201cBut it means that 50 percent of that disease is still going on, despite a very good response to this drug, so we\u2019re in it for the long haul because we understand that it\u2019s a breakthrough, but it\u2019s not enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Cummings would know. He is currently the #3 scientist and world-renowned Alzheimer's researcher who received the Alzheimer\u2019s Association\u2019s Lifetime Achievement Award three years ago.<\/p>\n

Dr. Zhong earned her medical degree in China and trained as a psychiatrist\/pharmacologist in Canada. She is a passionate health advocate who was honored with the Las Vegas \u201cHealthcare Headliner Research Award\u201d for creating the Cleveland Clinic's healthybrains.org.<\/p>\n

Together, they are currently hard at work, building and expanding research initiatives as professors at the Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience within UNLV's department of brain health.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all about how to do clinical trials better,\u201d says Dr. Cummings. \"I'm working with the brightest minds\u2014computer scientists, engineers, neuroscientists\u2014to innovate Alzheimer's clinical research. I'm very excited to receive a $6 million endowment, and $3 million in National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding to continue this work.\"<\/p>\n

For 16 years, Drs. Cummings and Zhong have shared not only a passion for combatting neurodegenerative diseases but also a passion for each other.<\/p>\n

In 2005, they said \u2018I do\u2019 in Las Vegas, proving that like minds definitely attract.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack when I was in my residency training, I read his textbook like a Bible,\u201d says Dr. Zhong. \u201cI had yellow highlighters and all these sticky notes. I had no idea what he looked like, but I said, \u2018This guy is really good. HA!\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>

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\"Dr.<\/span><\/div><\/div>

Dr. Kate Zhong & Dr. Jeffrey Cummings<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

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While Dr. Zhong had an aunt with dementia, Dr. Cummings says his medical career wasn\u2019t motivated by family history. But both found studying the human brain fascinating.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a student, I just fell in love with this whole idea of biology and philosophy, and the mind\/brain intersection. The way forward in that is science,\u201d says Dr. Cummings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI treated many patients with depression, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia,\u201d adds Dr. Zhong. \u201cBut what I fell in love with was my Alzheimer's patients; although they didn't remember much of what they were experiencing on a day-to-day basis, they were able to tell me their fascinating life stories, such as during World War II. That really inspired me to say: \u2018What if we have something that can stop this disease? What if we can reverse this and then they can regain their precious memory?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, they have focused all of their work on brain disorders\u2014specifically Alzheimer\u2019s\u2014a disease they say kills 350 people every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe diseases are not getting more common,\u201d says Dr. Cummings. \u201cThey are more frequent in the population because the population is aging, and it\u2019s all driven by aging.\u201d
\nFollowing his successful tenure as director of not one but two research and neurotherapeutic centers at UCLA, Dr. Cummings was recruited by the Cleveland Clinic as founding director, and Dr. Zhong as the senior director for research, to build the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health's programs from scratch. They moved to Las Vegas in 2010, where they had previously tied the knot, and never looked back.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore we came to Las Vegas, it wasn\u2019t a city that was known for researching Alzheimer\u2019s,\u201d says Dr. Zhong. \u201cSome people were like, \u2018Are you losing your mind?\u2019 jokingly. [But] I think we feel very proud of what we have done for the city, which we love.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>

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\"Dr.<\/span><\/div><\/div>

Dr. Jeffrey Cummings & Dr. Kate Zhong<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

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\u201cI think we elevated the level of science in the city, and we\u2019ll continue to do that,\u201d adds Dr. Cummings. \u201cI got the first major grant from the NIH that came into Southern Nevada to support neuroscience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also, while at the Center, they were instrumental in initiating the clinical trial for Aduhelm, ultimately putting the city they now call home on the map for brain research advancements.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, with the same passion, the same drive, and the same network of resources, we\u2019re going to continue to do more with UNLV and beyond,\u201d says Dr. Zhong. \u201cI consider both of us as the ambassadors for the city of Las Vegas.\u201d<\/p>\n

And according to their recently published 6th annual \"Alzheimer's Disease Drug Development Pipe-line\" report, there is even more good news on the Alzheimer\u2019s front: three other potential drugs are now in the FDA\u2019s approval pipeline.<\/p>\n

\"We learned so much from COVID,\" says Dr. Cummings. \"Professor COVID taught us how the FDA can work fast under great pressure; how great science can accelerate the speed of research; and how important the patient's participation is to finding new treatments.\"<\/p>\n

Both admit they have their work cut out for them, but these Alzheimer\u2019s ambassadors say they are committed to this new drug, to brain health, to the patients and families living with Alzheimer\u2019s, and to each other, in the hope of preventing this disease for good.<\/p>\n

After all, the couple who fights Alzheimer\u2019s together stays together.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Alzheimer\u2019s patients and their loved ones have a renewed sense of hope now that the U.S. Food & Drug Administration approved the first Alzheimer\u2019s drug in nearly two decades. Dr. Kate Zhong, MD, MSC, FRCP (C), and her husband Dr. Jeffrey Cummings, MD, SCD have put Las Vegas on the map for brain research advancements and have focused all of their work on brain disorders\u2014specifically Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4521,3378],"tags":[3414,3415,3416,3413,3412,2981,267,3417,3128],"class_list":["post-2315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-and-wellness","category-issue-8","tag-alzheimers","tag-brain-research","tag-disease","tag-dr-jeffrey-cummings","tag-dr-kate-zhong","tag-hope","tag-las-vegas","tag-nih","tag-stacey-gualandi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11410,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2315\/revisions\/11410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chiccompass.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}