The 2026 DIAN Family Conference, "Rising Together", took place on 11 July at University College London's Institute of Child Health. As in previous years, it was held alongside the Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC). Our Deputy Executive Director, Angela Bradshaw, was delighted to attend on behalf of Alzheimer Europe.
The conference is convened by the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN), an international research partnership led by WashU Medicine. DIAN studies dominantly inherited Alzheimer's disease, also known as autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease or familial Alzheimer’s disease, a rare form caused by mutations in one of three genes. People who inherit such a mutation almost always develop Alzheimer's dementia, typically before the age of 60, and each of their children has a 50% chance of inheriting it. Through its observational study and the DIAN-TU trials unit, the network investigates diagnosis, treatment and prevention.
Hosted by Natalie Ryan (Senior Clinical Research Fellow and Honorary Consultant Neurologist at University College London/UCL) and held in a packed lecture theatre at UCL, the programme brought together dozens of individuals with lived experience of familial Alzheimer’s disease from the US and from Europe, as well as researchers, clinicians and patient organisation representatives.
Sessions spanned the path from laboratory to treatment, the latest observational and trial findings presented by Randall Bateman (Professor of Neurology at Washington University), Eric McDade (Associate Professor of Neurology at Washington University) and Haruo Naito (CEO of Eisai), and a panel about the opportunities and challenges in developing new treatments for familial Alzheimer’s disease, with contributions from Nick Fox (Professor of Neurology at University College London) and Fiona Elwood (VP Disease Area Stronghold Lead for Neurodegeneration at Johnson & Johnson).
A highlight of the family conference was an advocacy session moderated by Lindsay Hohsfield, a neuroimmunologist and APART-USA fellow at the Medical University of Innsbruck, who founded Youngtimers, a non-profit supporting people with early-onset, familial Alzheimer's disease. Her panellists Davide Mangani, May Phillips and Jetske van der Schaar spoke about their advocacy journeys from lived and family experience of dominantly inherited Alzheimer's disease, bringing people to their feet in a standing ovation to close the meeting.
Learn more about Familial Alzheimer’s Disease and Youngtimers: https://www.youngtimers.org/
Read about DIAN and the family conferences: https://dian.wustl.edu/for-families/
