USA2 SPOTLIGHT

A January 22, 2020 UsAgainstAlzheimer’s release spotlighted a new global partnership between the Global CEO Initiative (CEOi) and World Economic Forum (WEF) to fight Alzheimer’s disease. This partnership, with a variety of public and private stakeholders, will build toward the debut of a comprehensive, coordinated, science-driven approach addressing key challenges to speeding innovation at the WEF 2021 Annual Meeting in Davos. According to CEOi Founder and UsA2 Co-Founder George Vradenburg, “Alzheimer’s is the biggest public health crisis of the 21st century, requiring this multi-stakeholder initiative to catalyze coordinated global action at the scope and scale of the response to AIDS, cancer and climate change.” UsA2 is a convener of CEOi.

A January 22, 2020 Forbes article addressed the urgent need to tackle Alzheimer’s disease and its societal costs on a global level. The Global CEOi - World Economic Forum coalition seeks to bring public and private stakeholders together to “create business plans and secure commitments from policymakers and business leaders to put Alzheimer’s on the agenda.” According to the article, “To create a highly prioritized, well-resourced global Alzheimer’s research environment with an efficient path to market, supported by well-understood biomarkers and an engaged healthcare network, is one of the most acute needs when it comes to the sustainability of healthcare delivery systems in the next decade.” UsAgainstAlzheimer’s is a convener of CEOi.

MUST WATCH

Watch the World Economic Forum’s January 22, 2020 panel, “Assessing the Options for Alzheimer’s,” with Arnaud Bernaert, Jo Ann Jenkins, Juliana Chan, Francis S. Collins and Michel Vounatsos. The number of people living with Alzheimer's disease is expected to triple in the next 30 years. The panel looks at new research and approaches.

RESEARCH AND SCIENCE

A January 21, 2020 Sci Tech Daily article explored the relationship between aluminum and familial Alzheimer’s disease, which has been studied for more than 40 years. Researchers found aluminum deposits in all of the donated brain tissue from people with a specific genetic mutation due to familial AD. According to the article, “The results strongly suggest that genetic predispositions known to increase amyloid-beta in brain tissue also predispose individuals to accumulate and retain aluminum in brain tissue.” “This is the… first [study] to demonstrate an unequivocal association between the location of aluminum and amyloid-beta in the disease,” said lead investigator Christopher Exley, PhD of Keele University, Staffordshire, UK. Also covered by Technology Networks.

A January 21, 2020 EurekAlert! news release focused on a newly discovered gene and associated protein, aggregatin, which could be suppressed to slow Alzheimer's disease. Case Western University School of Medicine researchers found that it aggregates within the center of plaques in people with AD. According to the article, “Their findings indicate that reducing levels of this protein and inhibition of its interaction with amyloid beta peptide could potentially be therapeutic--not necessarily to prevent Alzheimer's but to slow its progression.” Also covered by Medical Xpress. 

NOTE FROM USA2

Alzheimer's Dailies will take a short break tomorrow - Thursday, January 23, 2020 - and return on Friday the 24th.