IHI launches a new interdisciplinary initiative to revolutionize the way Alzheimer’s disease is detected, diagnosed, prevented, and treated

2024-01-30

(Press-News.org)

Stockholm, January 30, 2024 — Members of the AD-RIDDLE consortium announced today that they will begin a new initiative that aims to bridge the gap between Alzheimer’s research, implementation science, and precision medicine. The AD-RIDDLE programme will offer healthcare professionals a suite of validated solutions for timely detection and diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and dementias, to match individuals with the right interventions at the right time, enabling people to better understand what they can do to reduce risk and prevent cognitive decline.

Alzheimer’s disease represents a major public health challenge. In Europe alone, around 7 million people are living with Alzheimer’s disease, a figure that is expected to double by 2050. There is a pressing need for effective preventive, diagnostic and therapeutic solutions, implemented at scale, and for increased engagement of individuals and caregivers with disease prevention, management and care. The advent of disease modifying therapies will lead to more people seeking diagnosis and treatment. While this initially represents an increasing cost to health systems and society at large, it also presents enormous potential for prevention, opportunities for more timely diagnosis and personalised treatment options, and overall health-economic benefits in the long term.

“With new research on the efficacy of multi-domain lifestyle interventions and the promise of disease-modifying therapeutics, there is renewed hope for patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers, and a window of opportunity for substantial progress,” said Miia Kivipelto, Professor, Research Director and Senior Geriatrician at the Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital, and Principal Investigator (PI) for the AD-RIDDLE project. “AD-RIDDLE represents the greatest opportunity yet for cross-sector progress in Alzheimer's research and care.”

Thanks to funding from the Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the AD-RIDDLE consortium will begin a five-year effort to transform how Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is detected, diagnosed, and treated across healthcare settings. The consortium unites academic and industry partners, healthcare providers, regulatory bodies, and patient organisations, bringing together a mix of world-class research, clinical practice, diagnostics, advanced analytics and data platform capabilities to the project. AD-RIDDLE builds on existing technology, biomarkers, tools, and interventions, many developed by the consortium partners through prior EU-funded initiatives, including studies building on Professor Kivipelto’s ground-breaking FINGER research.

AD-RIDDLE aims to unlock efficiencies for AD diagnosis and treatment, removing barriers to entry that traditionally slow down patient access to healthcare providers and precision medicine. The project will create a modular toolbox platform designed to provide support at all stages of the clinical pathway, including:

A digital community engagement portal, including self-guided assessment tools for older adults, pathways for timely referral to healthcare providers, and resources that are tailored and actionable. An array of screening tools for increased accuracy in risk detection and early diagnosis, including digital cognitive assessments and blood-based biomarkers. A decision support toolkit for healthcare providers, powered by validated algorithms for differential diagnoses, prevention, and care. Personalised patient therapies which can be physician-supported or self-guided, including lifestyle interventions and pharmacological treatments, matching patients to the right interventions at the right time.

The AD-RIDDLE platform will allow for flexible adaptation and application in diverse settings, from memory clinics to primary care and the broader population outside of healthcare systems. A real-world testing study will be conducted in these settings across six European countries and will provide extensive evidence to support implementation of diagnostic tools, treatments and lifestyle interventions. Data from the study will be hosted in a GDPR-compliant manner on the European Platform for Neurodegenerative Diseases (EPND), an IMI2-funded initiative which will make datasets available for additional research and discovery, with the goal of facilitating new findings in neurodegenerative disease research.

“AD-RIDDLE will rapidly advance the “last mile” of innovation, bridging Alzheimer’s care pathways from research to a real-world setting in an efficient and effective manner based on high-quality data,” said Niranjan Bose, Managing Director, Health and Life Sciences at Gates Ventures and co-lead for the project. “AD-RIDDLE will generate real-world evidence for clinical implementation of precision diagnostics, interventions and therapies, and drive new research on Alzheimer’s disease by making datasets available through EPND.”

With broad participation of patients and clinical experts across a diverse mix of healthcare settings in the EU, AD-RIDDLE aims to empower patients with actionable guidance to address their cognitive health and will push Alzheimer’s research forward.

About AD-RIDDLE

AD-RIDDLE receives funding under the auspices of the Innovative Health Initiative Joint Undertaking (IHI JU) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee. The AD-RIDDLE programme has an initial budget of over €31 million, comprising €12,090,250 from the EU, €16,421,395 from the contributing partners and €2,368,307.25 from UKRI. The budget is distributed across a total of 24 partners:

Region Stockholm (manages all publicly-financed healthcare in Stockholm County) Karolinska Institutet FINGERS Brain Health Institute University of Gothenburg Lund University University of Eastern Finland Stichting VUmc Universiteit Maastricht Fundacio BarcelonaBeta Brain Research Center SYNAPSE Research Management Partners SL Alzheimer Europe Alzheimer’s Disease International Università Degli Studi Di Perugia Gates Ventures LLC Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative Combinostics OY Fujirebio Europe NV Sanofi C2N Diagnostics LLC neotiv GmbH Cambridge Cognition Limited University of Leicester Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine National Institute for Health and Care Excellence

For more information, contact info@adriddle.org or visit ad-riddle.org

About the Innovative Health Initiative

The Innovative Health Initiative (IHI) aims to translate health research and innovation into real benefits for patients and society, and ensure that Europe remains at the cutting edge of interdisciplinary, sustainable, patient-centric health research. Health research and care increasingly involve diverse sectors. By supporting projects that bring these sectors together, IHI will pave the way for a more integrated approach to health care, covering prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and disease management. IHI is a partnership between the European Union and European industry associations representing the pharmaceutical, medical technology, biotechnology, digital health, and vaccine industries, namely COCIR, EFPIA (including Vaccines Europe), EuropaBio, and MedTech Europe. IHI’s total budget for the period 2021-2027 is €2.4 billion. Half of this comes from Horizon Europe, the EU’s research and innovation programme. The IHI industry partners have committed €1 billion to IHI, and a further €200 million can be committed by other organisations that decide to become Contributing Partners.

Acknowledgement

This project is supported by the Innovative Health Initiative Joint Undertaking (IHI JU) under grant agreement No. 101132933. The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme and COCIR, EFPIA (including Vaccines Europe), EuropaBio, MedTech Europe, Gates Ventures, Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative, Combinostics OY, Fujirebio Europe N.V, Cambridge Cognition Ltd., Sanofi, C2N Diagnostics LLC, and neotiv GmbH. The participation of Cambridge Cognition Limited, University of Leicester, Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine, and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) will be funded by UKRI under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee.

Disclaimer

Funded by the European Union, the private members, UKRI, and the contributing partners of the IHI JU. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the aforementioned parties. None of the aforementioned parties can be held responsible for them.

END

[Attachments] See images for this press release:

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Goats can tell if you are happy or angry by your voice alone

2024-01-30

HONG KONG (18 Jan 2024) — Goats can tell the difference between a happy-sounding human voice and an angry-sounding one, according to research co-led by Professor Alan McElligott, an expert in animal behaviour and welfare at City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK). The study reveals that goats may have developed a sensitivity to our vocal cues over their long association with humans, according to the study published in Animal Behaviour. Long known for their own sonorous vocal skills, goats in the study tended to spend longer gazing towards the source of the sound after a change in the valence of a human voice, i.e., when the playback switched from a happier to ...

Scientists identify how fasting may protect against inflammation

2024-01-30

Cambridge scientists may have discovered a new way in which fasting helps reduce inflammation – a potentially damaging side-effect of the body’s immune system that underlies a number of chronic diseases. In research published in Cell Reports, the team describes how fasting raises levels of a chemical in the blood known as arachidonic acid, which inhibits inflammation. The researchers say it may also help explain some of the beneficial effects of drugs such as aspirin. Scientists have known for some time that our diet – particular a high calorie Western diet – can increase our risk of diseases ...

Superfluids could share characteristic with common fluids

2024-01-30

Every fluid — from Earth’s atmosphere to blood pumping through the human body — has viscosity, a quantifiable characteristic describing how the fluid will deform when it encounters some other matter. If the viscosity is higher, the fluid flows calmly, a state known as laminar. If the viscosity decreases, the fluid undergoes the transition from laminar to turbulent flow. The degree of laminar or turbulent flow is referred to as the Reynolds number, which is inversely proportional to the viscosity. The Reynolds law of dynamic similarity or Reynolds similitude, states that if two fluids flow around similar structures with different length ...

Alzheimer’s treatment roadblocks can be eased by engaging primary care providers in screenings

2024-01-30

There is substantial geographic variation across the U.S. health care system to diagnose and treat early-stage Alzheimer’s disease with disease-modifying therapies, and engaging primary care providers in the effort may be a key to accelerating delivery of emerging new treatments, according to a new RAND report. Enabling primary care practitioners to diagnose and evaluate patients for treatment eligibility would make the biggest impact on reducing wait times for specialists and increase the number of people treated with disease-modifying therapies from 2025 through 2044. While primary care providers are technically capable of performing cognitive assessments, ...

New study identifies link between presence of oncofoetal ecosystem and liver cancer recurrence

2024-01-30

A new causal link has been found between the presence of oncofoetal ecosystems and recurrence and response to immunotherapy in primary liver cancer, hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) The findings will pave the way to use the presence of oncofoetal ecosystems as a biomarker to treat HCC, a disease with a poor prognosis that is typically diagnosed late Singapore, 30 January 2024 - A team of clinician-scientists and researchers from the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research and global research partners, has found a causal link between the presence of oncofoetal ...

Unveiling the effect of Ti substitutions on the static oxidation behavior of (Hf,Ti)C at 2500 ℃

2024-01-30

Hf-based carbides are highly desirable candidates for thermal protection applications above 2000 ℃ due to their extremely high melting point and favorable mechanical properties. However, as a crucial indicator for composition design and performance assessment, the static oxidation behavior of Hf-based carbides at their potential service temperatures has been rarely studied. In a study published in the KeAi journal Advanced Powder Materials, a group of researchers from Central South University and China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology revealed the static oxidation mechanism ...

High power fiber laser at 1.2 μm waveband

2024-01-30

Laser sources operating at the 1.2 μm wavelength band have some unique applications in photodynamic therapy, biomedical diagnosis and oxygen sensing. Additionally, they can be adopted as pump sources for mid-infrared optical parametric generation as well as visible light generation by frequency doubling. Laser generation at 1.2 μm waveband has been achieved with different solid-state lasers including semiconductor laser, diamond Raman laser, and fiber laser. Among these three types, fiber laser thanks to its simple structure, good beam quality, and operation flexibility, is a great choice for 1.2 μm waveband laser generation. Researchers ...

Integrated design of Global Ocean Observing System essential to monitor climate change

2024-01-30

We know that our climate is changing. Extreme weather events are becoming more common, sea levels are rising and overall, our planet is getting warmer. Monitoring these changes is critical. One of the best indicators of climate change is the Ocean Heat Content (OHC) estimate, a measurement of overall oceanic temperature calculated by gathering water temperature data in oceans around the world in differing locations, at varying depths and across time. The data necessary to calculate the OHC over such a wide-spread area is gathered by the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), an integrated network of platforms ...

Nitrogen-based fertilizers differentially affect protist community composition in paddy field soils

2024-01-30

Soil microbiome has far-reaching significance, particularly for rice production, which can be better explained with a Japanese proverb: “Rice grows with soil fertility, while upland crops depend on fertilization”. Therefore, understanding the paddy field microbiome is crucial for sustainable soil fertility and rice production. This would also lead us to overcome the global food shortage problem as rice is the primary food source for nearly half of the world's population. Among the paddy field microbes, bacteria, fungi, and archaea are well-studied, while protists, the vast majority of eukaryotes, are largely unknown. Protists are the most diverse eukaryotic microorganisms ...

Systemic US reforms needed to prevent mass death in the next pandemic

2024-01-30

Ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, The BMJ today launches a forward-looking series that highlights the lessons that can be learned from the US’s covid-19 experience and the actions that are needed to prevent the loss of another million citizens in the next pandemic and improve and protect population health. The articles, written by leading clinicians and researchers across the US, explore topics such as how systemic racism and economic inequality contributed to covid-19 disparities; mass incarceration and poor prison health as a driver of the pandemic; ...

IHI launches a new interdisciplinary initiative to revolutionize the way Alzheimer’s disease is detected, diagnosed, prevented, and treated

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: