The National Institutes of Health released recommendations that provide a framework for a bold and transformative Alzheimer’s disease research agenda.
Developed at the recent Alzheimer’s Disease Research Summit 2015: Path to Treatment and Prevention, the highly anticipated recommendations provide the wider Alzheimer’s research community with a strategy for speeding the development of effective interventions for Alzheimer’s and related dementias.
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NIH summit delivers recommendations to transform Alzheimer’s disease research
Leading experts, advocates call for innovative approaches and collaborations to speed discovery
These recommendations call for a change in how the academic, biopharmaceutical and government sectors participating in Alzheimer’s research and therapy generate, share and use knowledge to propel the development of critically needed therapies.
“These recommendations support a research framework that empowers all stakeholders — including those with the disease or at risk for developing it — to engage in the vital effort to find treatments.”“Alzheimer’s research is entering a new era in which creative approaches for detecting, measuring and analyzing a wide range of biomedical data sets are leading to new insights about the causes and course of the disease,” said NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.—Richard J. Hodes, M.D Director, NIA
“In these times of significant fiscal constraints, we need to work smarter, faster and more collaboratively. These recommendations underscore the importance of data sharing and multidisciplinary partnerships to a research community that looks to the NIH for guidance on the way forward.”Over 60 leading Alzheimer’s and chronic disease experts from academia, industry, non-profit organizations and advocacy groups joined to develop the research recommendations.
The recommendations, which are to be considered by the National Advisory Council on Aging at its meeting on May 12 and 13, outline new scientific approaches to address critical knowledge gaps and propose ways to harness emerging technologies to accelerate treatments for people at all stages of the disease.
They also identify infrastructure and partnerships necessary to successfully implement the new research agenda and strategies to empower patients and engage citizens.
Overarching Alzheimer’s disease research themes include
- Understand all aspects of healthy brain aging and cognitive resilience to inform strategies for Alzheimer’s disease prevention.
- Expand integrative, data-driven research approaches such as systems biology and systems pharmacology.
- Develop computational tools and infrastructure in order to enable storage, integration and analysis of large-scale biological and other patient-relevant data.
- Leverage the use of wearable sensors and other mobile health technologies to inform discovery science as well as research on Alzheimer’s disease care.
- Support and enable Open Science in basic, translational and clinical research.
- Change the academic, publishing and funding incentives to promote collaborative, transparent and reproducible research.
- Invest in the development of a new translational and data science workforce.
- Engage citizens, caregivers and patients as equal partners in Alzheimer’s disease research.
“Determining the best path for progress in Alzheimer’s disease research has been as challenging and complicated as the disorder itself,” said NIA Director Richard J. Hodes, M.D. “These recommendations support a research framework that empowers all stakeholders — including those with the disease or at risk for developing it — to engage in the vital effort to find treatments.”The recommendations will be used to update and expand specific milestones for achieving the prime research goal of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease External Web Site Policy, that of finding effective therapies to treat or prevent Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias by 2025.
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About the National Institute on Aging: The NIA leads the federal government effort conducting and supporting research on aging and the health and well-being of older people. It provides information on age-related cognitive change and neurodegenerative disease specifically at its Alzheimer’s Disease Education and Referral (ADEAR) Center at http://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers
About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.
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