Dr. Maggie Flanagan, MD, director of the Nun Study at UT Health San Antonio, recently received a $100,000 Rising STARs award from the University of Texas Board of Regents to advance research relating to Alzheimer’s Disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. This is exciting news for the School Sisters of Notre Dame, who have had a particular connection to this work since 1986 when a group of SSND enrolled in the Nun Study with the hope that their participation would fuel progress in the understanding of dementia. The Rising STARs award will expand those sisters’ contributions, increasing funding for Dr. Flanagan to study the patterns and causes of disease.
Pictured here are Sister Gabriel Mary Spaeth, a research associate with the Nun Study from 1991-2007, and Sister Norita Reardon, one of the sisters who participated in the study.