Ben Bahr, an internationally recognized researcher of neurodegenerative disorders, had two job offers in 2009: one from the University of Hawaii and another from The University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
When he picked the latter, a lot of people asked why. “I get more work done at this type of school,” Bahr told them.
UNC Pembroke is not an R1 university, a designation from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education for schools that focus heavily on research. Bahr said he previously worked at the University of Connecticut, an R1 school, where he had “many hats to wear.”
With fewer administrative responsibilities, Bahr knew he could focus more on his passion–developing new drugs to treat neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s. UNC Pembroke gave him an empty lab at its Biotechnology Research and Training Center.
Today, Bahr’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Lab is developing what he hopes will be low-cost pharmaceuticals for patients with Alzheimer’s disease. He says a promising ingredient in that treatment is American ginseng.
Bahr and his team took slices of rats’ brains and aged them in a refrigerator for 18 to 20 days before treating them with the herb. They suspected that the ginseng would trigger a specific enzyme that helps clear a brain pathway of the built-up proteins believed to cause Alzheimer’s and similar neurodegenerative disorders.
They were right, according to a peer-reviewed research paper that Bahr co-authored. The findings were published in the December issue of Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
Other researchers have also said the herb can improve cognition for people with impaired memories. Scientists who conducted a study in Korea between 2010 and 2016 found that people older than 60 who consumed any type of ginseng for at least five years had a lower incidence rate of dementia, according to a 2018 research article in the peer-reviewed journal Alzheimer’s Research & Therapy.
Bahr developed and patented a treatment method that he says will combine the herb and a specific molecule that targets Alzheimer’s. Ultimately, he hopes a drug company will invest in the product and get approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
But he has more work to do. This summer, he plans to send the treatment to a company that will test it on mice that are genetically altered to have symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
“We’re at the very early stages,” Bahr said, “but we’re excited.”
NCInnovation, a state-funded nonprofit that helps public universities commercialize promising research, gave Bahr’s lab a two-year, $1.1 million grant last May. Bahr said he hopes to get the second year of funding this summer despite questions about the future of NCInnovation.
North Carolina still doesn’t have a budget, but both the House and Senate proposals would claw back $500 million and redirect it to hurricane recovery efforts.
Thinking Outside the Box
Bahr grew up in California and knew he wanted to go into research. He enrolled at the University of California, Santa Barbara as an undergraduate and landed a spot in a lab researching Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases.
Bahr found drug development the most fascinating. He stayed at Santa Barbara to earn his doctoral degree in chemistry and then joined UC Irvine’s Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory as an associate researcher and lecturer. He became an associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Connecticut in the late 1990s, staying at the school for over a decade before joining UNC Pembroke.
Scientists have gained a better understanding of Alzheimer’s disease over the decades. But Bahr said the development of treatments has been slow because Alzheimer’s is “the most complicated disease known.”
Last year, the drug company Johnson & Johnson ended a study of an injectable treatment after it failed to slow the disease’s progress in a statistically significant way. Novo Nordisk wanted to know if GLP-1 weight-loss drugs could, but clinical trials showed they did not have an impact.
“Everything we learn about the brain doing Alzheimer’s research helps other diseases and even our quality of life.”
Ben Bahr, researcher at UNC Pembroke
An estimated 7.2 million Americans 65 and older are living with Alzheimer’s, including 210,500 North Carolinians, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. The number of U.S. adults developing various forms of dementia is expected to increase by 1 million each year by 2060, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Medicine.
Bahr said it’s possible that his treatment could also work for Parkinson’s disease, which involves a buildup of proteins in the same brain pathway. About 500,000 Americans are living with Parkinson’s, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, a number expected to double by 2040.
Currently, the only drugs that slow the progression of Alzheimer’s are delivered intravenously, meaning patients have to go to clinics for treatment. He said the treatment he is developing can be taken orally.
“We’re trying to think outside the box,” Bahr said. “What about a combination therapy, combining natural products with a small molecule?”
The biggest hurdle is still money. That’s why Bahr hopes a drug company will get on board to help cover the costs of testing, paperwork, and federal requirements.
“For a small campus like UNCP, it’s incredibly difficult,” Bahr said.
Unlike most research universities, UNC Pembroke doesn’t have a technology transfer office to help Bahr commercialize his findings. Bahr said he tries hard to convince the school’s administrators that it is their “social responsibility to people with neurological disorders.”
“Half my job is just working on my university to take this seriously,” Bahr said.
Helping the Next Generation
Despite the challenges, UNC Pembroke has increased its focus on health care. Last year, the university welcomed its first class in a Master of Healthcare Administration program. The first students in its Doctor of Nursing Practice program graduated in December, and the school plans to open the state’s only optometry program at a public university in 2027.
When senior biology major Natalie Pacheco transferred from UNC Wilmington last year, she was surprised to learn about Pembroke’s Alzheimer’s research lab. She signed up to be a research assistant.
Pacheco, 25, is from Johnston County. She said Bahr renewed her passion for science after she lost interest in academics during the pandemic.
“He’s like somebody’s dad,” she said. “He’s really pushing you along because he wants you to succeed. He wants you to find what you like to do. He wants you to do good.”
Bahr makes the work fun, Pacheco said. Sometimes he breaks down complicated laboratory procedures into steps as if he were making brownies.
Bahr’s lab lost its financial support for undergraduate research assistants briefly last year when the National Institutes of Health canceled the Undergraduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement grant. The program aims to increase the diversity of undergraduates who go on to pursue graduate and doctoral degrees in research-focused biomedicine programs.
Almost as suddenly as the grant was revoked, it was reinstated last month, Bahr said.
An NIH spokesperson told the Border Belt Independent that it “cannot comment on the status of individual grant applications or deliberations,” but that the agency “remains committed to supporting rigorous, evidence-based research that advances the health of all Americans.”
Women and people of color have long been underrepresented in STEM fields, according to the U.S. National Science Foundation. As a Latina researcher and daughter of immigrants, Pacheco said she’s thankful to have the opportunity at UNC Pembroke.
“We’re not from this prestigious place,” Pacheco said. “This is a community that’s underrepresented, but there are great people here who can do great things.”
For Bahr, the funding means he can support more research assistants and keep pushing toward treatments for neurodegenerative disorders.
“Everything we learn about the brain doing Alzheimer’s research helps other diseases and even our quality of life,” Bahr said. “So there’s lots to be learning.”