Taylor Foundation Awards $100,000 Grant to Support Alzheimer’s Work of Sue T. Griffin, Ph.D.
| LITTLE ROCK — The Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation Inc. awarded the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) a $100,000 grant to support the Joan Richards Taylor Alzheimer’s Disease Endowment Fund in the UAMS Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging.
The grant was given in recognition of the work and dedication of Sue T. Griffin, Ph.D., for her decades of research into Alzheimer’s disease. The funds will be used to support further research conducted by Griffin and Meenakshisundaram Balasubramaniam, Ph.D.
Charles Taylor was an accomplished aviator and prominent Little Rock businessperson, working in real estate and insurance. During World War II, he flew a B-17 bomber in the first formation to cross the English Channel on D-Day. At the close of the war, he helped recover American prisoners of war in German prison camps. He retired with the rank of colonel, with numerous decorations including the Legion of Merit and Croix de Guerre avec Palme.
Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor
Joan Richards Taylor was born Joan Kathleen Foreman in Kent, England, in 1916. She was educated in Kent and London, where she became a top model. She modeled for Queen Elizabeth II’s designer and several others, and frequently graced the pages of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Drapers’ Record. During World War II, she appeared in training films for the British Royal Air Force, helping teach pilots how to avoid revealing classified information, as well as numerous other roles in the war effort. Richards was also a film actress, appearing with well-known British stars. Paramount Studios brought her to the United States, but before she could make it to Hollywood, Charles Taylor brought her to Arkansas for a visit. They married in 1946. She shared her husband’s interests in duck hunting, raising sheep and Welsh ponies, boating and travel.
In 1995, Charles Taylor created an endowment at UAMS to support Alzheimer’s research. Joan Taylor died in 1996 from Alzheimer’s, and Charles Taylor passed away a few weeks later.
“Charles and Joan Taylor lived incredibly full and fruitful lives, the legacies of which live on through their abundant generosity to the many that were fortunate to receive it,” said Jeanne Wei, M.D., Ph.D., executive director of the Institute on Aging and chair of the Department of Geriatrics. “The Taylor Foundation’s support of the Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging through the years has been instrumental in helping seniors in Arkansas live more independent and fulfilling lives. We are very thankful for their philanthropy.”
Griffin is the Alexa and William T. Dillard Chair in Geriatric Research and a distinguished faculty scholar in the College of Medicine and director of research at the Institute on Aging. She is also a professor in the college’s departments of Neurobiology & Developmental Sciences, Internal Medicine and Psychiatry. Notably, she is a winner of the Alzheimer’s Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award and inductee of the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame.
Griffin’s pioneering work includes the discovery of a type of inflammation in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. She went on to show how this inflammation contributes to formation of amyloid plaques, neurofibrillary tangles and Lewy bodies in the brains of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients as well as its connections to genetic differences that confer greater risk of the disease in certain individuals.
In January 2024, UAMS announced that a potential new drug to prevent Alzheimer’s disease in people with the so-called Alzheimer’s gene was discovered by Griffin and Balasubramaniam. Their findings were published in Communications Biology and include discoveries of a druggable target and a drug candidate.
“The Taylor Foundation has been a mainstay of support for our Alzheimer’s disease research at UAMS for decades,” said Griffin. “We are so excited this year as just now we are in a position, because of our new discoveries of ‘drug like’ preventatives against the Alzheimer gene as well as the main driver of neuroinflammation, namely Interleukin-1 beta, we can now with certainty propose funding of a new NIH-sponsored Program Project aimed at prevention of Alzheimer’s disease as we forestall with our new agents the detrimental effects of not only the Alzheimer gene, but, as well, the principle driver of the Abeta plaques outside the neurons and the neurofibrillary tangles inside the neurons — the cardinal features of Alzheimer’s disease that account for the loss of neurons and the terrible consequences of Alzheimer dementia. The ongoing support of the Taylor Foundation, as always, will be a mainstay of our work.”
“Though phenomenally talented, my team cannot conduct groundbreaking research without grant funding,” added Griffin. “We are forever indebted to the Taylor Foundation’s support.”
Founded in 2000, the Institute on Aging’s world-class geriatricians care for thousands of patients each year. It maintains a statewide network of seven regional Centers on Aging, including the innovative Schmieding Home Caregiver Training Program, and focuses on research in memory loss, neurodegenerative disease, cardiovascular health and nutrition. The institute is also nationally recognized for educating and training geriatricians at the Department of Geriatrics in the College of Medicine.
UAMS is the state’s only health sciences university, with colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Health Professions and Public Health; a graduate school; a hospital; a main campus in Little Rock; a Northwest Arkansas regional campus in Fayetteville; a statewide network of regional campuses; and eight institutes: the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute, Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute, Psychiatric Research Institute, Donald W. Reynolds Institute on Aging, Translational Research Institute, Institute for Digital Health & Innovation and the Institute for Community Health Innovation. UAMS includes UAMS Health, a statewide health system that encompasses all of UAMS’ clinical enterprise. UAMS is the only adult Level 1 trauma center in the state. UAMS has 3,485 students, 915 medical residents and fellows, and seven dental residents. It is the state’s largest public employer with more than 11,000 employees, including 1,200 physicians who provide care to patients at UAMS, its regional campuses, Arkansas Children’s, the VA Medical Center and Baptist Health. Visit www.uams.edu or uamshealth.com. Find us on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube or Instagram.###