Research Projects

ArrestAD proposes a novel and visionary thinking resulting from the demonstration of the central role of a particular heparan sulfate species at the intracellular level in neurons and in circulating cells in the molecular pathology of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). AD is a societal challenge for which there is neither prevention nor possible cure...

Understanding the genetics of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is one of the best ways of improving our knowledge of the disease's underlying pathophysiological processes. Indeed, genetic factors account for up to 70% of the attributable risk in common forms of AD. The advent of genomic approaches has led to the characterization of 26 genetic determinants...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an ever-increasing public health concern among the aging population and is the most common form of dementia affecting more than 15 million individuals worldwide and around 5 million Europeans. The direct and indirect costs of AD and other dementias amount to more than €440,000 million each year (www.alz.org, 2010).Even...

In the absence of a cure for dementia, most research is aimed at an early diagnosis as it opens the way to timely future care and treatment, and can help people take control of their lives and plan ahead. However, people with moderate to severe dementia and their carers are often not receiving services of the type, quality and timing that they need...

By means of three different technologies, visual stimulation of mirror neurons in Alzheimer patients, an interactive agenda or diary and a movement monitoring system, people with dementia will be able to improve or sustain their cognitive functions. By developing, integrating and testing these technologies in home-care and residential settings we...

MEETINGDEM aims to implement and evaluate the innovative Meeting Centres Support Programme (MCSP) for community dwelling people with dementia and their family carers, in three European countries: Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom. This person-centred approach has been positively evaluated and adaptively implemented in 118 meeting centres in the...

IMI’s Call 8 is geared to develop knowledge frameworks for ‘druggable mechanisms’ for two domains of pathophysiology. In response to this call, we propose (I) the development of a generic AETIONOMY pipeline to capture and infer over mechanistic knowledge of pathophysiology, and  (II) the focused application of this pipeline to derive clinically...

Neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental diseases constitute a major health burden, and in spite of several decades of intensive research, the molecular mechanisms underlying these diseases are still poorly understood, and effective drug treatments are generally lacking. Alterations in protein synthesis have been implicated in several of these...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) affects over 35 million people worldwide and yet there are currently no medicines which slow down the progress of the disease. The ADAPTED project aims to boost the development of new medicines by investigating an area of AD research which has previously received little attention – the APOE gene. The APOE gene is a well...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia in the elderly, and a major reason for disability and death. The time course of AD varies between different people affected, and being able to tell in advance how the disease is likely to progress would have a great value for patient, their caregivers and for all of society. In the...

Beta-amyloid (β-amyloid) deposition is considered to be a necessary - but not sufficient - step on the path towards Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Depiction of brain β-amyloid in vivo can support an early diagnosis, and even provide an opportunity for consider secondary prevention of AD. Currently, however, the value of β-amyloid PET remains elusive...

In dementia at the end of life, cognitive and physical decline imply that control is typically lost. CONT-END will examine control in the context of three emerging interventions which contain a controversial element of striving for control in the process of dying with dementia: advance care planning of the end of life, use of new technology to...