Alzheimer Research Forum

Alzheimer Research Forum (ARF), or Alzforum is a website which uses web technology to accelerate research into Alzheimer's disease.

The website was founded in 1996 by June Kinoshita, funded by an anonymous philanthropic foundation, and launched at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders in Osaka, Japan, The forum brings together a team of specialists in science writing and editing, data curation, information architecture, project management and technology.

Alzforum was established as an independent neutral Non-profit organization, without affiliation to any specific university or research institute. Its relations with the scientific community include an advisory board with leaders in the scientific community representing diverse points of view.

At first the site took the form of ‘Papers of the Week’ listings, including abstracts of all relevant publications (initially manually produced in order to avoid copyright infringement), commentary, virtual audio seminars, and a list of seminal papers in Alzheimer's research. The Web’s potential for interactivity was used for informal live chats and commentary on papers by registered users of the site. By the end of the first year there were 1200 users, adding as many as 100 new users a month in the first years of its existence.

From 1997, the website also began to develop as a community repository, enabling researchers to deposit data sets. Currently it maintains several databases relating to gene mutations, gene association studies, epidemiological studies, antibodies, drug trials, protocols and antecedent biomarker studies. Of particular note are the AlzGene database of genetic studies of Alzheimer's disease, which has been cited more than 1,200 times in the scientific literature, and the AlzRisk database of epidemiologic studies. The forum acts as an integrator of these diverse sources, linking primary research articles to related news, papers, databases, and discussions .

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