Academic gets funding to unlock amyloid secret that could prevent Alzheimer's

A dementia researcher has been given nearly £370,000 to investigate how to clear a build up of the protein amyloid in the brain, which many believe will prevent people getting Alzheimer’s.

Dr Cheryl Hawkes at The Open University in Milton Keynes will try to clear amyloid from the brain, an early sign of Alzheimer’s and has received funding from Alzheimer’s Research UK to find out more.

Dr Hawkes will investigate how processes involved in regulating blood flow could play an important role in the clearance of amyloid from blood vessels in the brain and will research how this process could go awry in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease.

A build-up of the amyloid protein leads to brain changes and ultimately causes damage to nerve cells and symptoms like memory loss and personality change.

Dr Hawkes said: “Blood flow in the brain is controlled by the release of chemical messengers from nerve cells that are damaged in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. We hope to discover whether a loss of communication between nerve cells and blood vessels could lead to a build-up of amyloid and contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s and a related disease called cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA).

“We also plan to look at whether drugs that increase levels of these chemical messengers could improve the function of blood vessels and clear amyloid more effectively. We hope our findings will highlight the potential for using drugs that are already approved for conditions such as depression, in the treatment of Alzheimer’s and CAA.”

Dr Hawkes and her team are embarking on a four-year study thanks to funding from the dementia research charity. The charity, which relies entirely on public donations to fund its research, is currently funding more than £26 million of research across the UK.

Dr Laura Phipps of Alzheimer’s Research UK said: “This innovative project will help shed new light on what is currently a poorly understood process which could have an important role to play in maintaining a healthy brain as people age.

“We hope the knowledge gained from this study will help to pave the way to new treatments to help the 850,000 people affected by the condition nationally.

“While awareness of dementia has been growing in recent years, funding for dementia research still lags far behind that of other conditions like cancer. Alzheimer’s Research UK doesn’t receive any government funding for the research projects we fund, so we’re very grateful to our supporters who make work like this possible.”