On 20 September, Bill Gates published a Gates Notes post on recent progress in Alzheimer's disease (AD) research, highlighting how initiatives such as the AD Diagnostics Accelerator can support the development of new ways to diagnose AD during the early stages of disease.
Alzheimer's disease affects one in nine adults aged 65 or over, with a long presymptomatic phase that can last years or even decades. However, many people only receive a diagnosis when they already have symptoms of dementia. In his blog post, Bill Gates underlines the importance of early diagnosis to identify individuals who may benefit from clinical trials of novel treatments.
Cheap, minimally-invasive diagnostics could provide a way to diagnose people early, before their AD symptoms become more severe. The AD Diagnostics Accelerator was launched by the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation in 2018, aiming to support the development of new solutions for the early diagnosis problem. Since then, a number of additional philanthropic funders have joined the AD Diagnostics Accelerator, bringing additional resources and expertise to the initiative. The Gates Notes blog post highlights some of the research that is currently being funded by the AD Diagnostics Accelerator, such as a new blood test being developed at the University of Gothenburg in partnership with Roche, and eye scans that spot tiny irregularities that may herald the development of AD. So far, 25 research projects have been funded through the Accelerator, encompassing diagnostics that use digital, wearable, blood and imaging scan data to identify early signs of AD that may otherwise go undetected.
The blog post and accompanying video can be found here:
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Health/New-breakthroughs-in-Alzheimers-diagnostics
