The NIHR Queen Square Dementia Biomedical Research Unit, which focuses it research on young onset dementias and the development of new methods of diagnosis and treatment, has opened.
The unit aims to discover new disease genes and develop rapid clinical testing, use genetic information to guide studies of the molecular processes of neurodegeneration, develop new treatments for those genetically at risk and extrapolate discoveries in young onset dementia to older patient groups.
It was set up in response to the Prime Minister David Cameron’s ‘Dementia Challenge’, was awarded £4.5m over a five year period from April 2012 and opened officially by Chief Medical Officer Professor Dame Sally Davies.
Dame Professor Davies said “This unit demonstrates the government’s ongoing commitment to tackling dementia. Research like that which is being led by the NIHR Queen Square Dementia Biomedical Research Unit is going to be absolutely critical if we are to understand this condition better and find new treatments and ultimately a cure.
“Treating patients with dementia costs £22 billion every year and we know that by 2025, some 34 million people across the globe are going to have dementia .
“Aside from the devastating impact dementia can have on individuals and their families, there is a real international economic incentive to enhance our understanding.
“Thank you to all of the researchers and clinicians at this unit for the work you are doing. Keep it up, it’s incredibly important.”
Research carried out at the unit is organised across four programmes: molecular mechanisms, signatures of diseases, biomarkers of change and novel therapies; led by Professor John Collinge, Professor John Hardy, Professor Nick Fox and Professor Martin Rossor, respectively.
Early highlights from the molecular mechanisms programme include the development and testing of more efficient and cost effective ways to diagnose early onset, genetic forms of dementia. A panel called the ‘Medical Research Centre Dementia Gene panel’ explores together for the first time all 17 genes known to play a substantial role in causing inherited forms of dementia.
Within the novel therapies programme a study soon to start is a clinical trial of deep brain stimulation to improve cognitive deficits in patients with dementia with Lewy bodies, a type of dementia that shares symptoms with both Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.
