Following the recent general election pledge by The Conservative Party to double investment in dementia research to find treatments, Alzheimer’s Society have released five key priorities for spending over the next decade including continued investment in the UK DRI.
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A generous £5 million donation has been received from the Garfield Weston Foundation to support the planned development of the new state-of-the-art neuroscience centre at UCL. The building, which will be located on Gray’s Inn Road, will house over 500 researchers from the UK DRI and UCL’s Queen Square Institute of Neurology, all working towards the Government’s 2020 Challenge on Dementia.
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A pioneering collaboration between the UK DRI and the Medical Research Council’s Protein Phosphorylation and Ubiquitylation Unit (MRC-PPU) will use the very latest advances in technology to study rare cell populations and the role of proteins in diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
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A new report from the Global Council on Brain Health (GCBH) confirms that heart and brain health are connected, and that taking action to improve your cardiovascular health reduces the risk of cognitive decline and dementia. The Brain-Heart Connection summarises the strongest research on this topic and offers practical lifestyle tips people can take to protect their heart and brain health. We spoke to Prof Joanna Wardlaw, Group Leader at UK DRI at Edinburgh and expert contributor to the report, about the science and significance of the findings.
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We believe that collaboration will be at the heart of future breakthroughs for people affected by dementia. To stimulate productive new academic relationships, we recently launched our cross-centre postdoctoral researcher scheme and are delighted to announce the successful projects which span development of sophisticated new biomarkers to pioneering characterisation of synaptic changes in Alzheimer’s disease.
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It was today announced that an international trial investigating the potential of two drugs to slow memory loss and cognitive decline has failed to benefit people with a rare, inherited form of Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers will continue to analyse data and are hopeful that insights gained can inform future clinical trials in this area.
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UK DRI researcher Professor Paul Morgan has played a key role in a study that has identified a new protein linked to age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The finding could offer new hope for the diagnosis and treatment of the disease, which affects over 1.5 million people in the UK alone.
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Two new talented Fellows have been enlisted to our UK DRI centres based at Imperial College London, following a generous donation of £1.63 million from Lily Safra and the Edmond J. Safra Foundation. Dr Sarah Marzi and Dr Bing Li, will work closely with Prof Paul Matthews, UK DRI at Imperial, and Prof David Sharp, UK DRI Care Research & Technology respectively. Geneviève Timmins, Digital Communications Manager at Imperial College London, sat down with the recruits to find out more about their research into Parkinson's disease.
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As part of our ‘Neuroinflammation Theme’, we held a workshop in December that brought together researchers from across the institute and beyond to share expertise and best practice on the use of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived microglia. Delving into topics such as reproducibility, cell line characterisation and microglia phenotype and function, attendees discussed and agreed on actions that would benefit the whole of the field moving forward.
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We have a clearly defined goal at the UK DRI to develop effective therapeutics and technologies for dementia. Alongside building our disease knowledge over the coming years, we must also make progress in translating these discoveries into the clinic. But what are the practicalities of this? And is translation all about drug discovery?
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We believe our research is strengthened by input from people with lived experience of neurodegenerative diseases.
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Following the recent general election pledge by The Conservative Party to double investment in dementia research to find treatments, Alzheimer’s Research UK have released six key priorities for spending over the next decade including continued investment in the UK DRI.
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Published recently in Neuron, researchers from the UK DRI at Cambridge, led by Prof Giovanna Mallucci, have discovered a harmful reactivity state in astrocytes that compromises these cells’ ability to support neurons. Targeting this new profile may lead to novel therapeutics against the devastating neurodegenerative diseases behind dementia.
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The UK DRI is delighted to announce that we will partnering with the British Neuroscience Association (BNA) for their Festival of Neuroscience in 2021.
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If 2018 was the year we came to life, 2019 was the year we grew at pace and strengthened in all directions. And that’s all thanks to the hard work and original thinking of each and every one of you. So what did you achieve this year?
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Women of the Wohl is a staff & student network promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in science, which was established in early 2018 at the UK DRI at King’s College London.
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A new article from the lab of Prof Tara Spires-Jones, UK DRI at Edinburgh, has shown that, in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), amyloid-beta and tau protein work cooperatively to cause a hyperactivity behavioural phenotype and downregulation of gene transcription relevant to synaptic function. Furthermore, tau reduction corrected these changes suggesting a possible route to therapeutic intervention.
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The Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) for UK DRI HQ will help look critically and imaginatively at our science portfolio and also advise on our structure, size, growth and ambition.
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In addition to the research packages awarded to Group Leaders, the UK DRI provides several internal awards designed to promote collaboration, establish institute wide research platforms and encourage innovative pilot studies from early career researchers. Managing all this from UK DRI HQ is new recruit, Dr Aoife Kiely (pronounced ‘ee-fa kylee’). We caught up with Aoife to find out what funds are currently available and ones to look out for in the near future.
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With the UK’s prevalence of Parkinson’s disease (PD) expected to almost double by 2065, the need for breakthroughs in disease-modifying treatments, as with other neurodegenerative disorders, is imperative. On 29 October UK DRI convened over 40 PD experts to London for an interactive workshop, co-hosted with Parkinson’s UK, in order to examine the latest developments and identify initiatives that could transform the field.
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