Rutgers Will Open New Alzheimer’s/Dementia Research Center

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — In the fall of 2023, Rutgers will open the school's first-ever research and clinical institute devoted to the study of Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

The facility will be called the Herbert and Jacqueline Krieger Klein Alzheimer’s and Dementia Clinical Research and Treatment Center, and it will be housed inside the existing Rutgers Institute for Health and Aging Research, right next to Rutgers-Robert Wood Johnson University Medical Center.

It will offer research insight from Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Rutgers New Jersey Medical School as well as facilitate clinical research in Alzheimer’s disease that could result in new medical treatments.

The center is supported by a $5 million donation from Herbert C. Klein, a Rutgers alumnus and former U.S. congressman, who made the gift in memory of his wife, Jacqueline Krieger Klein, who died in 2017 after battling Alzheimer’s disease.

“My wife was a wonderful woman whose life was cut down by this disease,” said Klein, a longtime donor in supporting Rutgers’ leadership in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease and other devastating neurodegenerative conditions. “She suffered for nine years. Sadly, there was really nothing that could be done to treat her. I am very proud to associate her with Rutgers’ efforts to defeat this dreadful disease. The work by this center will have a tremendous effect in this fight.”

An estimated 6.5 million Americans live with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the Alzheimer’s Association, which calls the disease “a growing public health crisis in New Jersey” that affects about 190,000 people over age 65 in the state.

Dr. Michal Beeri, an Israeli and a global leader in Alzheimer’s disease clinical research, has been named the center’s director.

Beeri, who will start at Rutgers on April 15, is a professor in the psychiatry department at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She developed The Joseph Sagol Neuroscience Center at Sheba Medical Center in Israel, a successful center in Alzheimer’s disease research.

Beeri will develop a cohort of hundreds of potential subjects for clinical studies on Alzheimer’s disease and lead some of those studies to understand the causes of this disease and develop novel therapeutics for its treatment.’s>

’s>Rutgers is investing heavily in the study and treatment of neuropsychiatric and neurological disorders, having in the past few years opened the Rutgers Addiction Research Center, the Rutgers University Center for Autism Research, the Advanced Addictions Treatment Center and the Brandt Behavioral Health Mood and Anxiety Treatment and Residential Center for older adolescents and younger adults.’s>