Two million people have already contributed data to the UK’s largest-ever dementia research effort, and now the project is buying new brain scanners and building stem-cell labs to turn that data into answers. Dementia research has long been fragmented—different studies using different equipment, different data formats, and different cell samples, making it nearly impossible to compare results or combine findings. This project tackles that fragmentation head-on. It will create a national network of PET/MR scanners that can watch molecular changes inside living brains, unify data from two million participants into a single accessible system, and grow stem cells from people with and without dementia to study how brain cells change as the disease begins. If successful, the UK will become the only place in the world where a researcher can link a brain scan from one centre, genetic data from another, and a living cell sample from a third—all from the same coordinated infrastructure. That could accelerate the discovery of early warning signs, drug targets, and ways to slow dementia’s progression. The work is applied infrastructure-building, not fundamental science, but without it the fundamental discoveries already sitting in those two million records will remain out of reach.
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The UK Dementias Platform (UKDP) is a radically new approach to dementias research. It brings together data from around 2,000,000 study participants from 22 cohorts to try and discover the causes of dementia and to find out ways of slowing it down. The platform has been funded to the level of £12M. In this proposal we want to improve UK infrastructure for dementia research so that the most can be made of the opportunity provided by UKDP. We wan to improve the infrastructure by buying important pieces of equipment that will put the UK at the forefront of dementia research worldwide and by establishing networks of scientists who will work together to make best use of the equipment. The three themes of the proposal are imaging, informatics and stem cells. For imaging we want to establish a network of PET/MR scanning facilities across the UK so that the molecular processes going on inside the brain that cause dementia can be studied. For informatics we want to be bring together bas many different types of data as possible and make it easy as possible for scientists to use them For stem cells we want to take cells form adults with and without dementia to find out how cells change as the dementias process begins and progresses. We believe these proposals will raise standards, reduce costs, and deliver innovative and coordinated research, making the UK an internationally unique place to study dementia.
Adrian Isaacs (Co-Investigator)Giampietro Schiavo (Co-Investigator)John Hardy (Co-Investigator)Nick Fox (Co-Investigator)Sarah Tabrizi (Co-Investigator)Thomas Warner (Principal Investigator)
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