UCSD - University of California - San Diego

06/16/2026 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/16/2026 12:47

UC San Diego Researchers Receive Major Grants as Part of $50M Effort to Advance Women’s Brain Health

Published Date

June 16, 2026

Article Content

Researchers at the University of California San Diego have received two major Alzheimer's research awards as a part of a more than $50 million investment in women's brain health by Wellcome Leap CARE and other organizations. These awards, granted over three years, will investigate how menopause and hormone therapy may shape dementia risk in women and develop new tools for earlier detection of Alzheimer's disease.

Women account for nearly two-thirds of people living with Alzheimer's disease, yet many questions remain about the biological and social factors driving that risk. The new awards support a growing area of research focused on answering these questions.

"Women are at greater risk for Alzheimer's disease, but we still do not understand why," said Judy Pa, PhD, professor of neurosciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine and director of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study. "These projects will help us better characterize what happens in the brain and body during midlife and menopause, and how those changes relate to later dementia risk. That knowledge is essential if we want to develop more precise, effective strategies for prevention and treatment."

Judy Pa is a professor of neurosciences at UC San Diego and director of the Alzheimer's Disease Cooperative Study.

One award, from Wellcome Leap CARE, will support two linked projects led by Pa and Iris Broce-Diaz, PhD, assistant professor of neurosciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine. Pa's project examines the relationship between menopausal hormone therapy and brain and cognitive health later in life. Broce-Diaz's project supports the development of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven tool to support clinical decision-making, integrating female-specific risk factors, biomarkers, neuroimaging and clinical data to help better predict who is at highest risk for dementia.

The hormone therapy project led by Pa will use large existing datasets to emulate a clinical trial, allowing researchers to study how women who initiate menopausal hormone therapy compare over time with similar women who do not. By analyzing long-term health and cognitive outcomes, the team hopes to generate stronger evidence about whether hormone therapy may alter dementia risk and which therapies may be most appropriate for women with different menopausal experiences.

Iris Broce-Diaz is an assistant professor of neurosciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

Broce-Diaz's project will build on advances in brain imaging, blood-based biomarkers and computational modeling to create a clinical decision support tool for physicians. The goal is to help primary care doctors and neurologists identify patients at heightened near-term risk of dementia earlier, when interventions and planning may be most effective The first planned rollout of the tool is expected later this year at UC San Diego, where an initial imaging-based version will be piloted with primary care clinicians on a research-use-only basis. Over the grant period, the team hopes to move toward broader clinical implementation as the tool is further refined and advances toward FDA clearance.

"Primary care doctors are often the first to recognize when something may be wrong, but they may not have the tools or specialty support needed to determine which patients are at highest risk for Alzheimer's disease," said Broce-Diaz. "We want to give clinicians better tools to detect who may be at imminent risk and who should be referred for further evaluation."

The second award, granted by an anonymous foundation, will fund a new collaboration between UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, and UC Santa Barbara's Ann S. Bowers Women's Brain Health Initiative. The study, called the Longitudinal Menopause Project and spearheaded by UC Santa Barbara faculty, will recruit women ages 40 to 55 and follow them before, during and after menopause, creating what Pa says could become a flagship program for perimenopausal brain health research in the United States.

This study will take a deep, multidimensional approach to women's health, combining brain imaging, blood-based biomarkers, body composition measures, wearable data and cognitive assessments. The researchers aim to better understand how menopause differs from woman to woman, what changes occur in the brain during this transition and how symptoms, hormone therapy and other health factors may affect long-term brain health.

"This is a chance to study women's brain health with a level of depth and precision that is missing from the field," said Pa. "By following women through the menopausal transition and looking across brain, body and behavior, we hope to generate evidence that can guide better care for generations to come."

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