Author Archives: jpnd

Consultation held on 20-21 June 2013 at Oxford University, UK in collaboration with the Global Coalition on Aging.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Oxford University and the Global Coalition on Aging (GCOA) concluded on Friday, 21 June 2013 aone-day expert consultation on "Unlocking Global Collaboration to Accelerate Innovation for Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia”.

Aimed at providing input to the OECD action agenda for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, the consultation brought together the highest level of global experts across health, economics, public policy, business, biotechnology and beyond.

JPND was represented on the conference programme by Prof. Martin Rossor, Vice-Chair of the JPND Scientific Advisory Board whopresented in the session entitled “From Bench to Bedside: meeting the needs of patients, academia , and industry”.

The consultation’s timing is aligned with UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s recent recognition that dementia is fast becoming the biggest pressure on care systems around the world. “That’s why we’re using the G8 to bring together health ministers, clinical researchers and healthcare companies. “he said “If the brightest minds are working together on this then we’ve got a greater chance of improving treatments and finding scientific breakthroughs. I’ve said before that we need an all-out fight-back against dementia that cuts across society. Now we need to cut across borders and spearhead an international approach that could really make a difference.”

“The global scale of the pending healthcare-economic crisis mandates a bold forward looking action plan to harmonize a multi-nation attack on the problem," noted Zaven Khachaturian, recognized at the meeting as the ‘Chief Architect’ of Alzheimer & Brain Aging research in the United States, now the President of the Campaign to Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease by 2020. He indicated the urgent need for a "multinational strategic goal for reducing the prevalence of Alzheimer’s and other chronic brain disorders by 50 percent within a decade" – thus urging the OECD to "identify the framework conditions to accelerate multi-national collaborative R&D."

George Vradenburg, Chairman of USAgainstAlzheimer’s and convener of the Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer’s, called for new attention, resources, commitment and collaboration to defeat Alzheimer’s disease. In his keynote speech, coined "The Oxford Accord," he called for G8 leadership equivalent to the G8 Summit that created the HIV/AIDS Global Fund.

Consultation experts presented their views for proactive public policy and an OECD role in supporting actions to: promote broad-based partnerships; identify incentives, frameworks and infrastructures for enhanced international data sharing; leverage big data as strategies to advance our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease, improve care, promote global exchange of good practice and move toward cure and even prevention.

Clickhere or at the link below for the conference programme and presentations.  The JPND presentation is availablehere or at the second link below:

JPND highlighted as global partnership to tackle issues associated with the ageing ‘timebomb’

Clickhere or on the link below to download the article

The entire edition of the magazine can be viewed at the link below (JPND article on p124-125).

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Clickhere to access other international press articles related to JPND.

Interferon-Beta Aids Balance and Movement in Mice With Spinocerebellar Ataxia 7

The first in vivo trial of the use of interferon-beta in a mouse model of the group of fatal, neurodegenerative diseases known as spinocerebellar ataxia has shown that its use can significantly improve their physical condition and control symptoms.

Researchers in France and the US believe that their results show that a clinical trial in humans is merited.

More information at the link below:

A report of the first year of the UK Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia has been published

The achievements against the three main areas of the challenge are described, with progress reports from the three Dementia Challenge Champion Groups on:
1. Driving improvements in health and care.
2. Creating dementia friendly communities.
3. Better dementia-related research.

Also, Prime Minister David Cameron recently announced that a G8 dementia-specific summit will be held in the UK in September 2013, allowing health and science ministers, international leading experts, senior industry leaders and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to achieve more coordination and collaboration on dementia R&D globally. 

More information at the links below:

A number of recent systematic reviews relevant to JPND diseases are highlighted below

Click on the titles to access the abstract of the review:

The association between vitamin D and cognitionDeep brain stimulation (DBS) and its effects on swallowing function in Parkinson’s disease (PD)Sensitivity and Specificity of Diagnostic Accuracy in Alzheimer’s Disease: A Synthesis of Existing Evidence 

Discovery reveals how an important protein helps translate learning into memory

Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (Gladstone Institutes) have deciphered how a protein called Arc regulates the activity of neurons – providing much-needed clues into the brain’s ability to form long-lasting memories.

These findings, reported in Nature Neuroscience, also offer newfound understanding as to what goes on at the molecular level when this process becomes disrupted. 

Latest figures show that in 1990, 3.68 million people had dementia in China and by 2010 this number had risen to 9.2 million

The international study, led by the University of Edinburgh and published in The Lancet, reviewed almost 90 public health studies that included the health information of almost 350,000 people in China. 

More information at the link below:

The XPRIZE Foundation, a nonprofit organization that creates highly coveted prizes for advances in human endeavor, will award a total of $50 million – the biggest XPRIZE yet – to anyone who develops a new therapy for Alzheimer’s.

Though details of the prize have yet to be finalized, it may rally a new set of innovators to the charge against this disease, said Eric Leuthardt, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, one of the scientists who proposed the idea at this year’s Visioneering conference, 25-28 April 2013. 

This annual meeting brings together experts from many disciplines to vote on what the XPRIZE Foundation should fund next.

More information at the links below:

On 29 May, the Public Health Committee in the European Parliament endorsed draft EU rules for clinical trials of new medicines

The new regulation is designed to encourage research while protecting patients’ rights and making simpler, more uniform rules. The new text makes specific provision for low-risk trials, clarifies the duties of ethics committees and details how to obtain informed consent from patients. It also simplifies reporting procedures and empowers the Commission to conduct checks. Finally, it stipulates that member states must respond to applications from clinical trial sponsors within fixed deadlines.

Nature Neuroscience recently published 25 new candidate genes for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Researchers found the genes by sequencing the exomes of patient-parent trios. Variations within the genes must have arisen de novo in each offspring, according to the research, because they were not present in either the father or the mother.

The same trio technique could offer insights into other conditions such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, said study senior author Aaron Gitler of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California.

The 25 genes perform a variety of functions, but five of them are involved in chromatin remodeling, the process by which proteins unwind or rewind DNA packaging to regulate transcription. 

More information at the link below: