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Alzheimer’s Trial Recruitment Innovation Lab

The Alzheimer’s Trial Recruitment Innovation Lab (ATRIL) seeks to diversify participant recruitment and accelerate the process of enrolling a representative population in preclinical and prodromal Alzheimer’s clinical trials through evidence-based science, community engagement and training. ATRIL tests novel recruitment methods that shift the focus from traditional research and healthcare settings towards community-based activities that reach diverse participants who are eligible for earlier intervention trials.

Program Leadership

  • Professor of Neurology, USC Keck School of Medicine
    Director, Section of Biostatistics & Section of Participant Recruitment & Retention, USC Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute

  • 2023 – 2024 USC AD/ADRD RCMAR Scientist, USC Schaeffer Center
    Co-Director, ATRIL
    Co-Director, Center for Equitable Economy and Sustainable Society
    Assistant Professor, Economics Department, Howard University

ATRIL Principal Investigators and Management

  • Co-Director, Aging and Cognition Program, USC Schaeffer Center
    Associate Professor, USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology

  • Principal Investigator, ATRIL
    Associate Professor of Clinical Neurology, USC Keck School of Medicine
    Director of Neuropsychology, USC Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute

  • Fellow, USC Schaeffer Center
    Principal Investigator, ATRIL
    Assistant Professor of Research, Neurology
    Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute, Keck School of Medicine of USC

  • Desi Peneva

    Research Program Lead, USC Schaeffer Center

Research Projects

ATRIL is a collaboration between the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics, the Alzheimer’s Therapeutic Research Institute and Howard University. The Center is part of the American Heart Association’s Strategically-Focused Research Network on the Science of Diversity in Clinical Trials.
ATRIL’s research projects build on an online participant registry, the APT Webstudy, to engage and recruit diverse participants for potential enrollment into a trial-ready cohort for immediate access to ongoing Alzheimer’s clinical trials. The FIND-AD project evaluates the impact of using financial incentives in a health system or community setting on the enrollment of underrepresented groups into the registry. The REACH-AD project evaluates innovative, remote, and unsupervised digital cognitive instruments for early detection of change consistent with preclinical Alzheimer’s disease in the registry.

2023 Alzheimer’s Trial Recruitment Innovation Lab Fellowship Program — Application Open

The University of Southern California (USC) announces an opening for a fellow to join the Alzheimer’s Trial Recruitment Innovation Lab (ATRIL) fellowship program in the fall of 2023.
Learn More

ATRIL fellows