Neurodegenerative Diseases Initiative

A better understanding of the disease mechanisms underlying neurodegenerative disorders is urgently required if new treatments are to be developed. The Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council Neurodegenerative Diseases Initiative was launched in 2008 to stimulate high-quality, collaborative and multidisciplinary research that would advance our understanding of the biological processes underpinning neurodegenerative diseases.

Three Strategic Awards funded

£17 million funding boost to UK neurodegenerative diseases research

In 2009, three new innovative and collaborative research programmes were supported. These multidisciplinary research programmes are focused on providing a better understanding of the causes of neurodegenerative diseases - Alzheimer's disease, frontotemporal dementia, Parkinson's disease and motor neurone disease - in a bid to develop better approaches for early diagnosis and therapeutic interventions for these diseases.

The multidisciplinary collaborations bring together leading academic research teams from around the UK, as well as leading international groups and pharmaceutical companies.

Mechanisms of neurotoxicity of amyloid aggregates The accumulation of one or both of the two proteins amyloid beta and tau is a characteristic feature of a number of neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer's disease. Professor St George-Hyslop and colleagues from Cambridge, Bristol, Max-Planck and Toronto aim to understand how this accumulation results in the death of brain cells using novel methods from physics, chemistry and biology. This information will allow the creation of accurate and sensitive diagnostic tests and new ways to treat diseases.
Link to the Cambridge Bristol Toronto Hamburg Neurodegenerative Disease Consortium

The role of RNA-processing proteins in neurodegeneration Recent research on motor neurone disease and frontotemporal dementia has shown that RNA-processing proteins are deposited in degenerating nerve cells and that rare mutations in three known genes cause a genetic form of these diseases. Using these discoveries, Professor Shaw and his colleagues from King's College London, Manchester, University of California San Diego, Cambridge and Dundee will model key aspects of the human disorders, allowing them to explore fundamental disease mechanisms and identify new therapeutic targets.
Link to the NDC website

Understanding Parkinson's disease - lessons from biology The cause of Parkinson's disease is unknown, although it is clear that it is a disease of ageing and there are now some established genetic risk factors. To understand how these factors combine, Professors Wood, Hardy and Schapira and colleagues from UCL, Dundee and Sheffield aim to dissect and understand the genetic architecture of Parkinson's and to identify and characterise the biochemical pathways involved in the earliest stages of the disease.
Link to the UK's Parkinson's Disease Consortium