Dementias Platform UK: A powerhouse for dementia research

Scientists at The Roslin Institute have joined other dementia experts at the Dementias Platform UK launched today.

A ground-breaking, multimillion pound collaboration between industry and academia, set up by the Medical Research Council, will hold its inaugural conference on 28th October 2014. The Dementias Platform UK received a huge investment through the Clinical Research Infrastructure (CRII), announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week, bolstering its funding base to £53million. World leading researchers from Universities across the UK (Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Imperial College, Oxford, Manchester, Newcastle, Swansea and UCL) and six companies (GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen Research & Development, AstraZeneca-MedImmune, Ixico, SomaLogic and Araclon) will use state of the art technology to:

• Get a better understanding who is at risk of developing dementia and why the progression of the disease varies from person to person
• Explore the anatomy of the disease to help develop new medicines and enable more accurate diagnosis
• Look into how existing drugs which are used to treat other conditions might help to treat the progression of dementia and improve symptoms.

Using health and lifestyle information from over two million people over the age of 50, as well as data from the lab, the Dementias Platform UK (DPUK) will focus on improving early detection, treatment and ultimately the prevention of dementias.

The Platform, formally known as the UK Dementia Research Platform (UKDP), will create the world's largest study group for use in dementia research. It will allow researchers to examine dementia in a whole new way, investigating not just what is going wrong in the brain, but at the brain in the context of the whole body. The Platform will look at the causes of dementia across a range of neurodegenerative conditions, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Motor Neurone Disease.

The Dementias Platform UK is the culmination of years of dedicated work undertaken by the Medical Research Council, to identify and tackle the problems facing dementia research. Talking to scientists, it became clear that a new way of researching the disease was needed - a collaborative approach that took advantage of the wealth of population studies in the UK. I think people will look back on the creation of the Platform as a watershed moment in the study of dementias, holding the key to accelerating treatments and ultimately prevention of the disease.

This is an important initiative for dementia  which has the potential to have considerable impact in the diagnosis,  treatment and prevention of these diseases. I am extremely pleased to be  engaged with this initiative and hope to make a significant  contribution to the UKDP.

If we can delay the onset of dementia by just a few years, we can halve the number of people who die from the disease. By bringing together the best scientific minds to discover the causes of these terrible diseases, we can and will beat them

In our ageing society tackling dementia is one of the biggest challenges facing the NHS and care system in the 21st century. The government's commitment to investment in dementia infrastructure and research is vital if we are to maintain the UK's position as a world leader in life sciences and get patients earlier access to new treatments. By better understanding how the disease works we will be able to make a huge difference to patients' and their families lives. These efforts will not only raise standards but reduce costs and make the UK the best place in the world to study dementia.

The Platform is unique, bringing together academia with industry in order to translate research undertaken by leading universities in the country into effective treatments for dementia sufferers.

For more information about the DPUK, please click here.