What do research and development have in common? The answer: Robert Roskamp, a philanthropist and Sarasota-based developer of senior living facilities. Roskamp has been in the development business for more than 30 years, beginning in Chicago where he built specialized homes for emotionally disabled adults. It was then that he first became interested in diseases of the mind.

Understanding first hand the effects these diseases can have on patients and their families after his brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia, Roskamp dedicated his life to finding cures and treatments of such diseases, and has been joined in this endeavor by his wife, Diane.

In 2003, their quest led to the creation of the Roskamp Institute in Sarasota, Florida, where some of the world’s most cutting-edge research is conducted on neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease. Since opening its doors, the Roskamp Institute has been a leader in the global effort to better understand and ultimately cure debilitating diseases of the mind.

The foundation for the Institute’s work was set more than a decade ago by Roskamp’s two lead researchers, Drs. Michael Mullan and Fiona Crawford. They were key members of a pioneering team of scientists who, in the early 1990s, discovered that the onset of Alzheimer’s was directly related to the accumulation of a protein called ß-amyloid. This protein is present in everyone, but thanks to the groundbreaking work of this team, it is now known that too much of it will result in the development of Alzheimer’s.