Alzheimer’s affects over 20% of people over the age of 85, as well as large numbers of much younger people, according to the World Health Organisation. The fatal disease kills brain cells, causing memory loss, anti-social behaviour and loss of bodily functions.

There is currently no cure, but if or when treatments become possible, early diagnosis will be essential for protecting the brain before the disease causes severe damage. Doctors will also need to be sure someone has Alzheimer’s and know exactly how the disease is progressing to prescribe any future treatment and support both patients and carers.

The AddNeuroMed project took a step towards a simple test that could detect and monitor the disease. The EU-funded study showed that certain proteins are more common in the blood of people with Alzheimer’s, becoming more concentrated as the disease progresses.

Clinical project coordinator Simon Lovestone of the University of Oxford warns that a blood test is a long way off, but says that it would be easier to undergo than other tests being developed, which involve uncomfortable lumbar punctures or expensive PET scans (high-tech positron emission tomography). It would also detect Alzheimer’s at an earlier stage than is currently possible.

As well as generating new data on how Alzheimer’s progresses in patients, the project resulted in a new mouse type that better mimics Alzheimer’s in humans, and the first MRI scans of fruit fly brains – both useful tools for researchers studying the disease. It also discovered a way of detecting changes in the blood of mice similar to those in the blood of Alzheimer’s patients, offering a promising line of enquiry for human diagnostic tests.

Results across boundaries

One unusual feature of the project was its combination of clinical (patient-based) and pre-clinical (laboratory) research to predict how different people with Alzheimer’s might decline.

At the centre of the project was a study of over 700 people, divided into those with Alzheimer’s, those with mild cognitive impairment and those without Alzheimer’s. These were followed up through the three years of the project, to provide clues to possible biomarkers – changes in the body – that correspond to disease progression.

“We got a lot of new information,” says Lovestone, in particular that blood concentrations of certain proteins correspond to changes in Alzheimer’s patients’ brains. The AddNeuroMed findings have already been shared with the scientific community at large: the team has published over 40 papers on the data from the study – “proof of the usefulness of the information”, Lovestone says.

AddNeuroMed was part of InnoMed, a 42-member collaboration between the pharmaceutical industry and academia to speed up new drug development

Paul Francis of King’s College London was the overall project coordinator and led the project’s pre-clinical studies. He explains: “The high-level goal was to show that pharmaceutical companies could work with each other, along with academia, on common themes at the precompetitive stage.”

He praises the consortium members for their teamwork and support for AddNeuroMed, saying: “They were all committed to a common cause.”

As there is considerable economic potential from biomarkers for Alzheimer’s, the project’s potential blood test for Alzheimer’s is protected by a patent.

Being part of consortium was “essential” to the project’s success, says Lovestone. “We needed a large study group and this was only possible across many sites – the structure of this project brought essential capacity that is difficult to achieve outside the EU system.”

The ultimate goal of the team is to find ways to prevent Alzheimer’s, he says, adding: “We will continue to look at biomarkers when we can and are now working with stem cells on another project.”