Alzheimer’s Research UK has awarded three researchers from the University of Exeter, a national hub for dementia science, grants to carry out research aimed at discovering new treatments, boosting early diagnosis and understanding the causes of dementia.
The grants, totalling up to £370,000, are part of a wider £3m funding announcement that aims to accelerate effective treatments for dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive condition recognised as the most common type of dementia. It currently affects around 900,000 people in the UK.
Professor Katie Lunnon has been awarded £152,000 from the charity to support PhD student Luke Weymouth determine why certain forms of APOE, a gene that forms a protein to keep brain cells healthy, can cause the development of AD.
Most people carry two copies of inherited APOE, which occurs in different forms, including APOE4, a ‘high-risk’ version. One in four people inherits one copy, making them three times more likely to develop AD.
Recent research from Exeter has highlighted a process called epigenetics. Weymouth explained that this is “one way our cells switch their genes on and off and involves adding or removing chemical tags on sections of their DNA”.
“This process can sometimes misfire and cause diseases to develop, such as cancer,” he said.
Recent findings from Lunnon’s lab have suggested that APOE4 is susceptible to having chemical tags, disabling it from functioning properly and affecting the brain’s ability to clear away amyloid protein, a hallmark of AD, causing it to build up and damage nerve cells.
Weymouth’s project will work towards opening up potential new treatments and prevention avenues, as well as working out whether APOE4 chemical tags occur in AD.
A further £148,000 will go towards Professor Wendy Noble’s project to develop new drugs that target the tau protein, which builds up in the brain and causes neurofibrillary tangles as AD develops.
The third project will receive £68,000 from the charity for Dr Emma Dempster’s research in molecular signals that emerge in the early stages of AD, potentially forming the basis of a test to detect the disease before symptoms affect patients’ lives.
Dr Sara Imarisio, head of strategic initiatives at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said that by funding scientists in their early careers will “make vital scientific progress” and “bring new talent into the dementia research field”.
She concluded: “Each new discovery that these projects produce paves the way for better diagnosis, treatment and prevention and ultimately for a cure.”