Research Projects

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...

Age-dependent neurodegenerative diseases associated with protein aggregation represent one of the most important medical and socio-economic challenges of our time. With the extension of human life span, the prevalence of this group of diseases has markedly increased. Among them, Alzheimer’s diseases (AD) and other dementias have become the second...

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...

There is an urgent need for novel approaches assessing functional decline in early AD. The main goal of the RADAR-AD project is to develop a digital platform to detect subtle functional deficits in early Alzheimer’s disease (AD) individuals by integrating a meaningful combination of smartphone, wearable and/or home sensor based parameters. The...

Alzheimer’s disease is a major cause of disability among older adults and represents substantial financial and human costs to patients, families and societies worldwide. Currently there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, novel effective treatments need to be developed that target the root causes of Alzheimer’s disease, in particular the...

Transport proteins are the gate-keepers of our cells, effectively controlling the flow of nutrients and other molecules across the cell membrane. With over 400 members, solute carriers represent the largest class of transport proteins. Yet although they have been implicated in diseases ranging from Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral...

Dementia is 60 times less common in people aged below 65 years than in older adults. However, when dementia occurs at a relatively young age it imposes a particularly severe burden on patients and families. RHAPSODY attempts to improve the management of young-onset dementia across Europe. The project starts with an analysis how health and social...

The retina carries signatures of neuronal diseases which have been linked to mechanical abnormalities,including Glaucoma and Alzheimer’s disease. Yet no biophysical retina model exists due to a cross-disciplinarychallenge: While stem cell derived organoids mimic the retina in vitro, organoid research has beenlimited by large variations in cell and...

Fronto-Temporal-Dementia (FTD) is a devastating progressive early onset dementia with a strong genetic influence. Currently, seven genes have been identified that explain >50% of familial cases, but how these different genes lead to a very similar clinical phenotype is still an unanswered question. Currently, there is no cure for FTD and for the...

RAMCIP will research and develop a novel domestic service robot, with the aim to proactively and discreetly assist older persons, MCI and AD patients in their every day life. Instead of simply being an obedient servant, the RAMCIP robot will have high-level cognitive functions, driven through advanced human activity and home environment modelling...

The objective of ROSETTA is to help community dwelling people with progressive chronic disabilities, such as Alzheimer’s Disease, to retain their autonomy and quality of life as much as possible and to support their (in)formal carers by developing and providing an ICT system that offers activity guidance and awareness services for independent...

Regenerating tissues by reprogramming cells has the potential to become a therapeutic approach for replacing lost tissues in patients suffering from injury or degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s or Muscular Dystrophy. Strategies to generate required tissues using embryonic stem cells or induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are associated...