It’s too late to help his grandfather, but Dr. Isaac Schiefer, is trying his best to spare other families the tragic consequences of Alzheimer’s disease.
The 31-year-old Bucyrus native, an assistant professor and researcher at the University of Toledo, recently won the highly competitive and prestigious $100,000 New Investigator Research Grant from the National Alzheimer’s Association.
The grant, the first from the Alzheimer’s Association in the history of the University of Toledo, is for Isaac’s work in developing a pharmacologic avenue to slow and possibly reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s.
While growing up in Bucyrus, Isaac watched as Alzheimer’s disease stole his fishing buddy from him and how the disease affected his entire family.
His late grandfather, Virgil Schiefer of Bucyrus, was diagnosed with the disease at age 75. Isaac’s grandmother, Mildred, cared for Virgil until his death 11 years later in 2004 – when Isaac was 19. He doesn’t remember much of his grandfather’s personality before Alzheimer’s invaded their family.
“Now that I look back, it’s hard to remember him not having Alzheimer’s,” Isaac said, adding his grandfather always seemed confused and grumpy. “I just thought he was a stereotypical ‘grumpy old man.’ This disease is just heartbreaking and not just for the patient.”
He remembers watching his grandmother talk to his grandfather about a memorable vacation they had together. His grandfather remembered none of it.
“The look on my grandma’s face was crushing.”
The son of Thomas and Vickie Schiefer, of Bucyrus, Isaac said his grandfather is one of a few family members to develop late-onset Alzheimer’s.
“It’s always in the back of my mind that another member of my family may get Alzheimer’s disease. It feels as though my research is in a race against time,” he said. “We’ve found ways to fix the heart and to make cardiovascular disease somewhat manageable. We’ve cured some cancers and made some others manageable. But with Alzheimer’s disease there is no prescription to fix it. Diseases of the brain are the final frontier of medical research.
“We’re working hard every day.”
He credits his pursuit of a scientific research career to two of his Bucyrus High School teachers – “Bio” Bill Fisher and Robert “Chevy” Chevalier – his biology and chemistry/physics teachers, respectively.
“They gave me the confidence to explore the sciences, which led me to a career in pharmacy, drug discovery and brain research. As I continued to develop, I began to focus on Alzheimer’s,” Isaac said.
He gives credit for his work ethic to his parents and basketball and football coaches at BHS.
“I learned early, the harder you work, the better things go for you,” he said. “The person who practices the most free throws – makes the most free throws. Similarly in science, the person who runs the most experiments makes the most discoveries.”
When you talk to Isaac about the influence his Bucyrus education had on his work, he also points out that he was a key contributor on the Redmen basketball team that won a share of the North Central Ohio Conference championship in 2003, under the leadership of coach Todd Martin – the first basketball title for the school in 37 years. Isaac’s photograph was featured in that year’s Jan. 22 edition of the Telegraph-Forum, the day after Bucyrus clinched the championship.
He notes the teamwork and leadership qualities he acquired in sports in Bucyrus have translated well to running a research lab, which is also a team of individuals with similar goals and varying aptitudes.
“In basketball each player has a unique skill set and must adapt those skills to fill a role for the team. Likewise, in a lab, different members have distinct expertise,” he said. “Understanding the ideal role for each teammate and how to motivate them to fulfill that role to the maximum of their ability is a key leadership quality I took away from my time playing Bucyrus sports.”
Isaac and his wife, Ashley, now live in Perrysburg, just south of Toledo, and make it back to north central Ohio several times a year; they have a 2-year-old daughter, Emma, and a second child on the way. Isaac also has an older and a younger sister – one lives in Bucyrus and one in Mansfield.
He also wants people to know that his late grandfather served honorably as a field medic and X-ray technician in Gen. George Patton’s Third Army in Germany during World War II. When Virgil returned home, he worked for the railroad the next 40 years, living in New Washington and later Bucyrus.
Last weekend, Isaac and his other grandfather, Benny Uhl of Bucyrus, golfed together in the third annual “A Round to Remember,” a fundraiser hosted by Dawn and Casey Pollock of Bucyrus. The outing’s proceeds benefit Debbie’s Footsteps, an annual team in the Mansfield Area Walk to End Alzheimer’s, this year scheduled for Sept. 17 on the OSU-Mansfield Campus. The team and subsequent outing was originally formed to honor Dawn’s mother, Debbie, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at age 52.
Dawn’s mother died of the disease last November at age 65.
Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the U.S. and the only one in the top 10 without a prevention, cure or effective treatment.
Through funds raised at the Walk, the Alzheimer’s Association provides community care and support for those with Alzheimer’s and their families and friends as well as to support research like that done in Isaac’s laboratory in Toledo.
RESEARCH DETAILS
As with most drug research, the details can be difficult to understand for those not in the field.
Simply put, Dr. Schiefer has developed a prototype molecule that improves memory in mice. He assesses how a body absorbs the molecule and how much goes to the brain. It is another step toward eventually developing a drug that works in humans with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.
He said the molecule was designed to increase a protein known to be important for long-term memory. The protein is lacking in those with Alzheimer’s disease and it is essential to maintain the health and survival of brain cells.
He and his colleagues hope to learn how much of their prototype drug is needed to increase the protein in the brain. They hope to establish the best oral dose for further studies.
Dr. Schiefer’s lab carries out drug discovery across a wide variety of scientific fields and his expertise is expected to expedite the development of agents that could become effective treatments for Alzheimer’s.
