Research Projects

The annual worldwide cost of Alzheimer’s dementia was 777.81 billion Euro in 2015. This number will rise to 7.41 trillion Euro in 2050. Early diagnosis would save up to $7.9 trillion in medical and care costs by 2050 in the US alone. However, the emergent pathology is highly variable across people, necehighly variable across people, necessitating...

Neurodegenerative diseases are one of the most important contributors to morbidity and mortality in the elderly. In Europe, over 14 million people are currently living with dementia, at a cost of over 400 billion EUR annually. Comorbidities with these conditions are frequent and a major obstacle to optimal diagnosis and management. Recent advances...

Median survival for people that are diagnosed with glioblastoma (GBM) is only 15 months. Chemoradiotherapy and targeted therapies still fail to combat peritumoral relapse after tumour removal. Preventing peritumoral brain invasion is the main target to cure GBM. Our project aims to validate a proof-of concept for a new medical device (MD) GBM Neuro...

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related disorders leading to dementia are associated with staggering costs and suffering. Recently, there has been some progress in the search for effective therapeutic interventions and it is clear that any treatment is likely to be most effective if administered at the earliest stage of disease, but the health care...

PHARMA-COG aims to develop a new integrated model to accelerate the development of drug candidates for MS, PKD and AD. The innovation relies on a 'multidimensional matrix' approach, integrating all available and renewed inputs (biomarkers/animal, human models/physiological and pharmacological challenges, Phase 0/1/1b to reduce the attrition rate...

PRIME introduces the novel concept of insulin signalling as a key mechanism underlying the multimorbidity of major mental and somatic illnesses. It is well known that aberrant insulin signalling causes high health and socioeconomic burden through its role in diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity. We posit that the impact of ‘insulinopathies’ is...

Background: The projected steep rise in global dementia prevalence will largely occur in low and middle-income countries (LMIC) and vulnerable populations in high-income countries (HIC). Up to 30% of all dementia is attributable to potentially modifiable risk factors. Mobile Health (mHealth) technology allows for scalable and widely implementable...

Major depressive disorder, dementia, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse affect a substantial part of the European older population. Over 70% of Europeans reside in cities, and this percentage will increase in the next decades. Urbanization and ageing have enormous implications for public mental health. Cities pose major challenges for older...

Neurodegenerative diseases all cause damage to the circuitry of the nervous system, with loss of connections, axons and neurons. The loss can be gradual, as in Alzheimer’s disease, rapid as in stroke, or intermediate as in the delayed neuronal loss after stroke. Following damage, the nervous system is able partially to compensate through the...

The current nosology of neuropsychiatric disorders allows for a pragmatic approach to treatment choice, regulation and clinical research. However, without a biological rationale for these disorders, drug development has dramatically stagnated in the past decades. In a coordinated effort encompassing academic experts, SMEs, patient and family...

Alzheimer’s disease is on the rise in our ageing population, and new, effective treatments are urgently needed. Currently, the safety and benefits to patients of potential treatments are assessed in strictly-controlled clinical trials. However, clinical trials do not provide information on the health benefits for patients in their daily lives in...

Alzheimer's disease (AD), the main cause of dementia, is one of the major global health challenges of our time. This disabling disorder affects 55 million people worldwide, with costs above $1.3 trillion. With 67 million people at risk for AD dementia (prodromal and preclinical AD) in Europe alone, it is a major unmet public health need, with...