CHS News

Category: Kinesiology & Applied Physiology

This image has a black background that combines a colorful illustration of a brain and a photograph of UD professor Christopher Martens in a white lab coat working with blood samples in a lab as part of his Alzheimer's research

Christopher Martens, assistant professor of kinesiology and applied physiology and director of the Delaware Center for Cognitive Aging Research, works with blood samples as part of his groundbreaking Alzheimer’s research.

One step closer

February 22, 2023 Written by Amy Cherry | Photo by Ashley Barnas | Illustration by Jeffrey C. Chase

Researchers link supplement to reduced biomarkers of Alzheimer’s in the brain

For the first time, a researcher at the University of Delaware College of Health Sciences in collaboration with a team at the National Institute on Aging, a division of the National Institutes of Health, has determined that the naturally occurring dietary supplement, nicotinamide riboside (NR), can enter the brain.

The discovery was made by Christopher Martens, assistant professor of kinesiology and applied physiology and director of the Delaware Center for Cognitive Aging Research, and Dr. Dimitrios Kapogiannis, a senior investigator at the National Institute on Aging. The finding is significant because it supports the idea that NR, upon reaching the brain, can alter the metabolism of relevant biological pathways involved in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. Their work, supported by an NIH grant, and in part by the Intramural Research Program of the NIH National Institute on Aging, was recently published in the journal Aging Cell.

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UD researchers Christopher Martens, associate professor of kinesiology and applied physiology and director of the Delaware Center for Cognitive Aging, and Curtis Johnson, associate professor of biomedical engineering and leader of the neuroimaging biomarker core within DECCAR, have been awarded $3.9 million from the National Institute on Aging to explore links between aging arteries, the brain, and cognitive decline.
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In Associate Professor of Kinesiology and Applied Physiology Chris Martens' Physiology of Aging class, students at the University of Delaware are learning virtually alongside their peers at Colorado State University and the University of Colorado Boulder. The unique learning model allows professors to leverage worldwide experts in the field of aging and bring them into their classrooms.