Author Archives: jpnd

Apple recently announced ResearchKit, a new software framework that turns the iPhone into a powerful tool for medical research.

In conjunction with the announcement of ResearchKit, The Michael J. Fox Foundation is announcing the launch of Fox Insight, a Web-based virtual clinical study open to individuals of any age, both with and without Parkinson’s, worldwide.

The Foundation also collaborated with biotech Sage Bionetworks on the development of a new Parkinson’s mobile app called Parkinson mPower that captures data on Parkinson’s symptoms and progression as part of a clinical study. Parkinson mPower is available for download in the iTunes App Store, and the mPower study is open to all U.S. residents over age 18, with or without a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease.

Later this year, data collected from participants who enroll in both mPower and Fox Insight will be used to validate the power of these two approaches in accelerating Parkinson’s disease research.

Watch a video by Apple to learn more about how ResearchKit and studies like mPower can help speed scientific progress toward cures by amplifying the patient voice in shaping research.

Read the press release to learn more about mPower and Fox Insight and future plans for both technologies.

Source:  Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

Some of Europe’s brightest young leaders in research into dementia gathered in London on 27th February 2015 as part of a series of workshops to discuss innovative ideas to address the disease.

More than 50 young experts in fields such as neurology, psychiatry, cellular biology and sociology gathered for a series of discussions and workshops looking at how to help people with dementia live independently for longer and what needs to be done to find a cure. The experts were from 19 countries including the UK, The Netherlands, France, Sweden, Poland, Germany, Croatia, Slovenia and Belgium. Click here for a list of the Young Leaders who attended the workshop.

The workshop was hosted at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by the UK Government’s Science and Innovation Network in partnership with the World Dementia Council and the Global Action Against Dementia programme, which were established after the UK Government hosted the 2013 G8 Summit on Dementia.

The young leaders were joined by members of the World Dementia Council, which was set up to provide global leadership on tackling the key dementia challenges. The event was also supported by the EU Joint Programming Initiative on Neurodegenerative Diseases (JPND) and Alzheimer Europe.

Flickr slideshow below courtesy of UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office, under Creative Commons licence.

This was the fourth in a series of workshops for young leaders organised by the Science and Innovation Network to support global efforts to achieve the 2013 G8 Summit Declaration commitments.  Previous Young Leaders workshops have taken place in the USA, Canada and Japan with the aim to create a global network of future young leaders which will continue to address the challenges presented by dementia.

The recommendations and outcomes of these workshops will be presented at the World Health Organisation’s First Ministerial conference on Dementia on March 16-17 in Geneva, Switzerland.  At the same time, the global Young Leaders Network will sign up to supporting future activities of the Global Action Against Dementia and the World Dementia Council.

 

Robin Grimes, FCO Chief Scientific Adviser said:
“International science and innovation collaboration is critical to deliver the commitment made at G8 to identify a cure or a disease-modifying therapy for dementia by 2025. This and other young leaders events will make a major contribution by bringing together the best young minds across a range of scientific backgrounds to encourage new ideas and foster new opportunities for innovation.”

 

Philippe Amouyel of the EU Joint Programme on Neurodegnerative Diseases said:
“The scale of the dementia challenge demands a global response, beyond G7 countries. This latest young leader workshop is importing new perspectives and innovative ideas from all over Europe and beyond to tackle the dementia challenge. By harnessing the collective brains of these ambassadors of research we ensure the future of dementia research remains bright, efficient and globalised”.

 

Working in association with the meeting organisers and Alzheimer Europe, JPND member countries actively identified and partly-supported the participation of Young Leaders in the workshop. Indeed, several JPND members increased their allocated support to facilitate the participation of as many identified young leaders as possible.  JPND Management Board chair, Professor Philippe Amouyel represented JPND in the workshop. Click here to view Philippe’s JPND presentation on the day.

The event was also covered by JPND on twitter via @P_Amouyel, @JPNDeurope as well as from the @UKinFrance, @matt_houlihan accounts. Keep up to date using the twitter hashtag #YLDementia.

 

 

On February 26th, 2015, Australia joined the ‘JPco-fuND’ call for proposals.

Due to this late arrival, researchers from Australia can participate as external collaborators in proposals submitted to this call under specific conditions.

The specific conditions for researchers in Australia can be found on the “Specific regulations” page of the call.

Should a proposal involving a collaborator from Australia be recommended for funding, these collaborators are eligible for funding from the NHMRC National Institute of Dementia Research (NNIDR).

*Please Note: Under this call the NNIDR will only fund research that focusses primarily on Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

The Joint Programming Initiative “A Healthy Diet for A Healthy Life” is launching a new joint transnational call for research proposals on “Nutrition and Cognitive Function”.

The call aims to support small transnational research consortia with innovative and interdisciplinary approaches tackling the interrelationships between nutrition and cognition.

The call is scheduled to be launched on March-30, 2015 with the deadline for proposal submission scheduled for June 8th, 2015.

The pre-call announcement is available here and through the link below:

 

The March 2015 editorial of The Lancet Neurology is entitled “Teaming up to fight neurodegenerative diseases“.

The editorial focuses on the recently-launched JPcofuND initiative.

To view the editorial, click here or on the link below.

The latest media articles on JPND (including previous Lancet Neurology editorials) are available here.

 

 

Image courtesy of The Lancet Neurology.

A study published in the journal Human Mutation revealed new genetic mutations in a domain of a dynein gene. The study, entitled “Novel mutations in the DYNC1H1 tail domain refine the genetic and clinical spectrum of dyneinopathies,” unlocks new insights into motor neuron diseases such as Spinal Muscular Atrophy.

Dynein is a microtubule motor protein that uses the energy contained in ATP (adenosine triphosphate) molecules to move. Dyneins can be either axonemal, facilitating the movement of cilia and flagella, or cytoplasmic, transporting several intracellular cargos along microtubule tracks. The movement of cytoplasmic dyneins is usually directed towards the center of the cell.

Several studies show evidence that genetic mutations in dyneins underlie some neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and motor neuron diseases.

Source:  SMA News Today

The Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP) is a new venture between the US National Institutes for Health (NIH), 10 bio-pharmaceutical companies and several non-profit organizations to transform the current model for developing new diagnostics and treatments by jointly identifying and validating promising biological targets of disease. The ultimate goal is to increase the number of new diagnostics and therapies for patients and reduce the time and cost of developing them.

AMP will begin with three to five year pilot projects in three disease areas: Alzheimer’s Disease, type 2 diabetes and autoimmune disorders of rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus).

Focus on Alzheimer’s Disease:

For the project on biomarkers, the tau imaging and EEG data will be released in year two, as baseline data become available. Final data from the randomized, blinded trials will be added after the end of the five year studies, and will include both the imaging data and data from blood and spinal fluid biomarker studies. For the network analysis project, each individual project will generate several network models of late onset AD (LOAD) and will identify key drivers of disease pathogenesis by the end of year three. Years four and five will be largely dedicated to validating the novel targets and refining the network models of LOAD, including screening novel compounds or drugs already in use for other conditions that possess the ability to modulate the likely targets.

The budget for Alzheimer’s Disease over 5 years is $129.5 Million (Total Project Funding)

Source:  NIH (USA)

 

Creatine monohydrate doesn’t appear to slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease, according to research published in the February 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

The new study included 1,741 people in the United States and Canada who had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease within the previous five years. All were receiving treatment for Parkinson’s disease. As part of the study, they were randomly assigned to take creatine monohydrate or a placebo in addition to their usual treatment.

The patients were enrolled from March 2007 to May 2010 and followed up until September 2013. The study was halted early because those taking creatine showed no differences in disease progression compared to those taking the placebo.

“These findings do not support the use of creatine monohydrate in patients with Parkinson’s disease,” study author Karl Kieburtz, MD, MPH, of the University of Rochester in New York, and colleagues write.

Source:  eMPR

SuperAgers have distinctly different looking brains than those of normal older people, and the same memory capacity as a younger person. Understanding their unique brains could lead to new treatments for dementia, researchers say.

Published Jan. 28 in the Journal of Neuroscience, a new study is the first to quantify brain differences of SuperAgers and normal older people.

Cognitive SuperAgers’ unusual brain signature has three common components when compared with normal persons of similar ages: a thicker region of the cortex; significantly fewer tangles (a primary marker of Alzheimer’s disease) and a whopping supply of a specific neuron –von Economo — linked to higher social intelligence.

‘The brains of the SuperAgers are either wired differently or have structural differences when compared to normal individuals of the same age,’ said Changiz Geula, study senior author and a research professor at the Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease Center. ‘It may be one factor, such as expression of a specific gene, or a combination of factors that offers protection.’

Source: Northwestern university

Three leading research funders from the UK and North America have joined forces to launch a new global initiative called MEND or, MEchanisms of cellular death in NeuroDegeneration, with a fund of $1.25 million USD for targeted research into brain diseases that cause dementia, such as Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s Research UK, the Alzheimer’s Association based in the U.S. and the Weston Brain Institute in Canada, whose participation in MEND is funded by Selfridges, announce the collaboration in response to the G7 health leaders’ commitment to collectively and significantly increase funding for dementia research, as announced at their December 2013 summit. G7 health leaders met in Bethesda, Maryland (U.S.A), last week to review progress on their goal to identify a cure or disease-modifying treatment by 2025.

MEND is open to applications from scientists around the globe, and researchers will be encouraged to collaborate on projects, sharing knowledge and resources in order to speed up progress. It’s hoped the scheme will also help answer fundamental questions about the similarities and differences between different diseases, such as whether the underlying mechanisms that cause cell death differ from one disease to another, and why each disease affects different types.

Source:  Medical News.net