Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation Awards $5.5M in Grants for Diagnostic Development

NEW YORK — The Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) said on Wednesday that it has awarded $5.5 million in new funding to support the development of blood-based tests for Alzheimer's disease and related dementias.

Recipients of the funding include Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis researcher Laura Ibanez, who was awarded $281,370 to develop a test that measures cell-free ribonucleic acid to predict Alzheimer's disease onset; and the University of Gothenburg's Henrik Zetterberg, who received a $3.2 million grant to advance an Alzheimer's disease test — being developed with Roche Diagnostics — that detects amyloid beta 40 and amyloid beta 42 protein fragments.

Other award winners include Rodney Pearlman of the Bluefield Project to Cure FTD, who was awarded $1.2 million to develop a test that measures neurofilament light chain (NfL) levels in people that carry an inherited form of frontotemporal degeneration but do not show symptoms; Douglas Galasko of the University of California, San Diego, who received $375,000 to work on an NfL- and tau protein-based test for Alzheimer's disease; and DiamiR CSO Samuil Umansky, who was awarded $492,000 to investigate the use of microRNAs as biomarkers of neurodegeneration.

The funding was awarded through ADDF's Diagnostic Accelerator, a partnership between the charity and various philanthropic partners.

The Scan

Positive Framing of Genetic Studies Can Spark Mistrust Among Underrepresented Groups

Researchers in Human Genetics and Genomics Advances report that how researchers describe genomic studies may alienate potential participants.

Small Study of Gene Editing to Treat Sickle Cell Disease

In a Novartis-sponsored study in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that a CRISPR-Cas9-based treatment targeting promoters of genes encoding fetal hemoglobin could reduce disease symptoms.

Gut Microbiome Changes Appear in Infants Before They Develop Eczema, Study Finds

Researchers report in mSystems that infants experienced an enrichment in Clostridium sensu stricto 1 and Finegoldia and a depletion of Bacteroides before developing eczema.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment Specificity Enhanced With Stem Cell Editing

A study in Nature suggests epitope editing in donor stem cells prior to bone marrow transplants can stave off toxicity when targeting acute myeloid leukemia with immunotherapy.