Brain institute rift simmers

At the intersection of Bonneville Avenue and Grand Central Parkway, construction at the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute is nearly complete.

By September's end the facility's medical building should be ready for furniture, followed by employees.

Dr. Charles Bernick, the facility's medical director, is lining up clinical drug trials, starting research projects and recruiting staff for the facility expected to open in the summer.

Though the infrastructure and medical and research programs are starting to take shape, the two sides tasked with maintaining growth of the landmark neuroscience project are bickering about who will have operational control.

The tug-of-war -- between the Keep Memory Alive Foundation and Nevada System of Higher Education -- has caused a "mediating or arbitrating" meltdown, said university system Chancellor Jim Rogers.

Each entity, he said, is made up of bright and territorial professionals who want that control.

"The problem is nobody wants to budge,'' said Rogers. "We're trying to marry a private foundation with an academic enterprise. It is very complicated. The philosophies are different but not necessarily incompatible.

"What we need to decide is which philosophy is going to get control. That's tough.''

Rogers would not elaborate on the rift but said it could slow certain decisions such as staffing and how the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute will be financed. He said neither of those discussions are taking place.

But, he promises, no one expects this "meltdown" to carry over into next year.

Rogers hopes there is a tentative agreement worked out within the next month or two.

Maureen Peckman, chief operating officer of the Keep Memory Alive Foundation, would not comment on the rift. However, she did say the nonprofit is working to meet its original goal of establishing a world-class Alzheimer's research facility in Nevada.

"The Lou Ruvo Brain Institute continues to work with the Nevada System of Higher Education and is very hopeful that we will be able to accomplish our mutual missions and to reach a good outcome for everyone,'' she said in a statement.

Keep Memory Alive is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, ALS and other memory disorders started by Larry Ruvo, a Las Vegas businessman whose father, Lou, died of Alzheimer's. Since it began in 1996, Keep Memory Alive has raised millions for Alzheimer's research and about $70 million toward building the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute.

"Whatever happens on the political side will happen,'' said Bernick, a professor with the University of Nevada School of Medicine. "But on the medical side, we're still focused on our mission and that is to find a cure for Alzheimer's."

Bernick said the brain institute's medical program is under way. It is enrolling patients into multiple clinical drug trials as well as conducting studies. One particular study to determine risk factors for Alzheimer's focuses on baby boomers.

The first patients being studied are children of people with Alzheimer's, Bernick said.

Alzheimer's is a progressive and fatal brain disorder that destroys brain cells, causing problems with behavior as well as memory. It is the most common form of dementia and the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States, affecting an estimated 5 million Americans. That figure is expected to increase as 78 million baby boomers age.

The effects of Alzheimer's are of particular concern in Nevada, which has the highest projected growth rate of dementia and Alzheimer's in the country. By 2010, an estimated 29,000 people age 65 and older with Alzheimer's will live in Nevada, a 38 percent jump from 2000.

Other projects include the use of home-based technologies to track cognitive changes in older people and a program looking at caregiver support systems. There is also an effort under way to use technology to reach out to people in rural Nevada.

Bernick said the brain institute is recruiting staff. He said it is seeking a neurologist who has a background in research and experience with the National Institutes of Health. The facility is also recruiting for a Parkinson's specialist and someone to lead research.

The brain institute has already brought in nationally recognized Zaven Khachaturian as president and chief executive officer. Khachaturian was the former director of the Chicago-based Nancy Reagan Research Institute and has received national and international acclaim for his work in dementia-related illnesses.

"I think the System of Higher Education and the Health Sciences System needs the Lou Ruvo Brain Institute and, at the same time, the Ruvo (brain institute) needs an academic center attached,'' Rogers said. "I am absolutely convinced we will hack out an agreement.''

The Nevada System of Higher Education oversees all state-supported higher education institutions in the state.

The Health Sciences System is collaboration between the higher education system's eight institutions and between the private hospitals and teaching institutions throughout the state. The goal of the collaboration is to help standardize curriculum at the various colleges. The brain institute is part of that collaboration.

Contact reporter Annette Wells at awells @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0283.