" We use genetics in most of our research to assess the participants that enroll in our studies. We know that there are certain genes that are very much associated with the development of Alzheimer’s disease, and so knowing whether people have those genes is important in determining whether the other factors that we’re looking at play a role as well. So we need to control for the presence of those. In particular, we look for for ApoE and more specifically, ApoE4. That has a very well-researched genetic linkage to the development of Alzheimer’s disease. "