Appointment of: Programme leaders for the UK Dementia Research Institute Contents The UK DRI will become a scientific hotbed 3 About the UK Dementia and one of the most exciting places for Research Institute breakthrough innovations, so we need 4 Strategic vision ambitious scientists at all career stages and 6 About the centres a mix of expertise. 8 Programme leader profile - UK DRI Professor Professor Bart De Strooper, UK DRI Director 12 Programme leader profile - UK DRI Fellow 16 How to apply 3 About the UK Dementia Research Institute The UK Dementia Research • accelerate the pace of discovery Council took the reins as leader Institute (UK DRI) is a joint £250 research to identify new targets of the institute in November 2015 million investment into dementia for drug development with a £150 million commitment. research led by the Medical Alzheimer’s Society and Research Council (MRC) alongside • develop new approaches for Alzheimer’s Research UK joined founding charity partners delivering effective clinical trials to as founding partners in early 2016, the Alzheimer’s Society and targeted patient groups contributing an additional £100 Alzheimer’s Research UK. million to the initiative. • attract new partnerships with The UK DRI will deliver a the biopharmaceutical sector step-change in the scientific to develop new therapeutics and Locations understanding of dementia, diagnostics generating new targets for drug With its headquarters at University development, reinvigorating the • develop and promote strategies College, London (UCL), the institute therapeutic pipeline and helping for interventions that prevent the comprised of centres across six to transform care. development or progression of UK universities: the University of dementia Cambridge, Cardiff University, the The new national institute will cover University of Edinburgh, Imperial dementia across the research • provide new insights and College London, King’s College spectrum, spanning Alzheimer’s technology-based approaches to London and UCL. disease, Parkinson’s disease, delivering more effective care and Frontotemporal dementia, vascular support to people with dementia dementia, Huntington’s disease and their carers. From summer 2017, the UK DRI and beyond. is seeking up to 18 programme leaders at the professor and Bringing together over 400 world- Origins fellowship level under a first leading scientists in biomedical, phase of recruitment to develop care and translational dementia The Prime Minister’s Challenge and lead a programme of research, the institute will carry on Dementia 2020 set out a clear research within and out a rich, varied and integrated target for research to deliver the complementing the portfolio of programme of research. The first effective treatments and the UK DRI. The programmes institute will form a vibrant and disease modifying therapies for will need to fit scientifically to the interactive community, centred on dementia by 2025 and called for selected centre, which will be the neuroscience working on around the establishment of a national direct employer 50 five-year research programmes Dementia Research Institute by across the UK in order to: 2020. The Medical Research 4 Strategic vision UK DRI Director Professor Bart UK DRI centres and research the institute, from different fields De Strooper has set an ambitious groups will naturally specialise across biomedical and translational vision for the institute, identifying in certain research areas, but research. Together this diverse the gap in our knowledge of how the institute is designed to be range of expertise will fill and enrich the healthy brain functions and opportunistic and grasp all good knowledge gaps in dementias. what leads to its degeneration. The ideas that could take us further UK DRI will achieve this by focusing in fighting the biggest health At the heart of the UK DRI is on the biological mechanisms challenge of our generation. innovation. A creative ethos will underpinning dementia. run throughout the institute. A Researchers at the UK DRI will significant part of the budget will be embrace novel technologies and Creativity and collaboration used to expand and implement the interdisciplinary approaches in new ideas generated by everyone order to build new knowledge and The UK DRI will help build the working at the UK DRI, taking understanding that will lead to next generation of dementia account of future partnership new treatments. researchers, by attracting new opportunities. researchers into the field and Research will initially focus on providing access to interdisciplinary The institute will also promote developing better models of training and cutting-edge collaborative working, both across disease and translating research resources. The institute will set the institute and also plugging into findings into new diagnostics and a dynamic pace to establish a dementia initiatives across the treatments and, in the longer term, vibrant, ambitious and interactive UK and beyond. The institute is cures. A care research strand will neuroscience community of initially looking to foster strong industry be incorporated as the institute 400 scientists. It will build on the connections so that discoveries develops, as will research seeking strong dementias research base made in the laboratory can lead to develop new approaches that already exists in the UK. to new treatments for people with to prevention. Top talent and rising stars from dementia as swiftly as possible. all over the world will come to Building a strategy for international excellence The director and associate directors are working together to establish the institute’s research priorities. The strategy will be published on Our vision for the institute is to identify the our website later in 2017. gap in our knowledge of how the healthy The first phase of the UK DRI brain functions and what leads to its establishment is focused on basic biomedical research. However, it’s degeneration. important that while the UK DRI looks for new medical treatments Professor Bart De Strooper, UK DRI Director for all dementias, it also ensures that those living with dementias and their carers can lead the fullest lives possible. That’s why research into dementia care will be integrated into the research strategy in 2018. 6 About the UK DRI centres Having centres located across gene expression and biological mechanisms of synapse, the UK allows the UK DRI to bring pathways in single cells related neuron and circuit level researchers together for shared to the progression of Alzheimer’s dysfunction leading to cognitive scientific inspiration, while making disease; new biomarkers to decline; macroglial and microglial the most of local cutting-edge tools monitor disease progression; roles in neuroprotection and and infrastructure. Each centre deficits in axonal transport in early neurodegeneration; the biology of is led by an associate director, neurodegeneration; Wnt signalling cerebrovascular, blood-brain-barrer contributing towards achieving the in synapses to discover new targets and metabolic dysfunction institute’s shared vision. for future dementia therapies. in neurodegenerative disease. The six UK DRI centres are located at: University of Cambridge, Cardiff UK DRI at the University of UK DRI at King’s College University, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh London Imperial College London, King’s College London and University College, London (UCL), which UK DRI at the University of UK DRI at King’s College London also operates as the Edinburgh will be located on the will be located in the newly built institute’s headquarters. BioQuarter, Edinburgh’s new Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience multidisciplinary research institute Institute on the Denmark Hill and teaching hospital with access Campus which houses the UK DRI at UCL to superb multimodal neuroimaging Nikon Centre of Excellence for and clinical research facilities. Neuroscience Imaging. Research from UK DRI at UCL will cover the journey from the patient The research team lead by Led by Professor Chris Shaw, the to the laboratory and back to the Professor Giles Hardingham will team will focus on the misfolding patient with improved diagnosis, examine the complex interactions and aggregation of the protein TDP- biomarkers and candidate between cells of the brain, immune 43, aiming to uncover fundamental therapies. Led by Professor Bart De system and blood vessels that mechanism common to several Strooper, UK DRI Director, the team make up the ‘neurogliovascular protein misfolding disorders that will address the key unanswered unit’. The team brings together can inform the development of mechanistic questions that link strengths in metabolism, therapies for multiple forms genetic and lifecourse factors to inflammation, blood vessel of dementia. dysfunction in molecular pathways, biology and stem cell medicine in cells and in neural systems to explore how interactions at the Key science areas at UK DRI during the progression of neurogliovascular unit control the at King’s College London dementias. trajectory of neurodegenerative include: Frontotemporal dementia diseases leading to dementia. and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; UCL is the headquarters of UK DRI. Parkinson’s and Dementia with Key science areas at UK DRI Lewy Bodies; Vascular dementia, Key science areas at UK DRI at the University of Edinburgh including Diabetes and Metabolic Mechanistic at UCL include: include: Cellular interplay Syndrome; mechanisms of understanding of dysfunction maintaining brain