Five new studies funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) will investigate neurodegenerative diseases that give rise to dementia.
£16.5 million of funding will help researchers, patients and industry partners work together to better understand how dementia begins and progresses. The studies will help identify new ways to treat or slow down the diseases before symptoms worsen.
Science Minister Lord Vallance said: “These studies are a great example of what can happen when industry, academia, charities and patients all work together to drive medical research forward. Boosting our understanding of some of the neurodegenerative diseases that can lead to dementia, is critical to tackling this cruel illness. It will help us develop the treatments that will hopefully, one day, stop dementia in its tracks and spare so many families from the heartache it causes.”
The studies use an approach known as experimental medicine, which involves working directly with living people to understand the biological changes that cause disease.
This could include:
- monitoring brain activity during sleep
- tracking changes in blood flow
- testing how the brain responds to new or repurposed drugs.
A key funding requirement was for all research teams to embed patient and public involvement and engagement into their proposals. With support from Alzheimer’s Society, people with lived experience of dementia reviewed each application to assess how well it involved patients and the public. Researchers responded to this feedback, and a dedicated sub-panel of patient and carer reviewers discussed the proposals and shared their views with the funding panel.
This process helped ensure the funded projects reflect what matters most to people living with these conditions, and that their voices were considered throughout the research.
Dr Richard Oakley, Associate Director of Research and Innovation at Alzheimer’s Society said: “Involving people with lived experience of dementia at every stage of dementia research is vital, making sure the research is not only credible but above all relevant to the people impacted. I am delighted our Research Network volunteers have been able to support the process and share their invaluable insight to ensure that MRC is funding experimental medicine studies that have the potential to rapidly translate to clinical benefits.”
Each project will work with the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme to ensure that discoveries in experimental medicine contribute directly to speeding up the development of new treatments for dementia.
The programme, led by the Office for Life Sciences, sets out ambitious goals to accelerate research and improve outcomes for people affected with dementia.All five studies are designed to generate insights that could lead to new or improved treatments, and all are grounded in the real experiences of people affected by these conditions.
Two studies will investigate how sleep affects the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. They will focus on a phase of sleep known as slow-wave sleep, which plays a key role in removing harmful proteins from the brain.
Two studies will focus on cerebral small vessel disease (cSVD), a condition where small blood vessels in the brain are damaged. cSVD is a major contributor to stroke and accounts for around 40% of all dementia cases.
Each project involves collaboration with industry partners, who bring specialist tools, technologies and expertise. These partnerships help researchers translate findings into potential treatments more quickly, supporting innovation and accelerating progress from research to patient benefit.
Professor Patrick Chinnery, MRC Executive Chair, said: “These studies highlight the potential of experimental medicine to bridge the gap between the mechanistic understanding of disease and the development of targeted advanced treatments for patients. By bringing together researchers and clinicians with industry, patients and carers from the start, we’re supporting research that has real-world relevance and translational potential.”