Texas’ lieutenant governor announced this week he wants to make Texas a beacon of dementia research with the start of a state-funded initiative.
The program would be called the Dementia Prevention Research Institute of Texas. It would follow the model of a similar Texas program to combat cancer, the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas. For short — that’s CPRIT, and now DPRIT.
Olivia Aldridge, who covers health care for KUT News, said Patrick’s push is in response to nationwide concerns about memory loss in older adults.
“Patrick and the other legislators who are supporting this so far have basically just called out how prevalent this concern is for older Americans in their families,” she said. “There’s some treatment available, but it’s really limited. And America, as a population, is also aging.
So I think it’s a concern on a lot of people’s minds. You know, as of 2020, approximately 460,000 Texans over the age of 65 were living with Alzheimer’s, specifically. And that’s just one kind of dementia.”
CPRIT can be used as a model for how to increase investment into dementia research, and put Texas at the forefront of the field, Aldridge said.
“(Lawmakers) are calling out that CPRIT did bring in a lot of medical infrastructure to Texas. And they’re hoping that this will kind of build on that,” she said. “They also are talking a bit about the fact that Texas is in a better financial position to take on something like this than a lot of other states would be.”
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There was some controversy in the early years of CPRIT about how grants were being awarded, Aldridge said. But since then, the program has grown to become the second biggest funding of cancer research in the country, behind the National Institutes of Health.
“The bill that became CPRIT was passed in 2007. Voters then had to approve it because it was part of a constitutional amendment. So it’s been renewed since then. So overall, a $6 billion investment from voters into this.” Aldridge said.
“CPRIT awards grants to researchers, scientists and other organizations that have ideas about how to fight cancer, either through prevention or treatment. It was created with this intent to really just galvanize cancer research, make real progress toward cures, and also just draw top talent to Texas.”
The idea is that DPRIT will work the same way, and Patrick has already flagged the initiative as a priority for the upcoming session. But, Aldridge said, there are still a lot of steps before the finish line.
“It’s early days. There’s still a lot to be worked out. The legislation has not been filed yet. The language is still being worked on, but there is some support in both chambers,” she said.
“If a bill passes the Legislature, the next step would then be that this has to go before voters as a ballot initiative because it would involve a constitutional amendment.”
