Large-Scale Profiling of Infection to Expose Links to Neurodegeneration

Conduct a large-scale, comprehensive study to establish causal links between persistent microbial/viral infections (such as herpes simplex 1) and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s Disease. Such a study would illuminate the role of infections in increasing disease risk and progression. This effort could serve as a sequel to the Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) that have been performed since the completion of the Human Genome Project. Many diseases failed to show obvious genetic etiologies from those GWAS efforts, suggesting a role for the environment in disease causation. Large-scale infection profiling could therefore unearth etiologies that were not possible to detect by GWAS.