The Alzheimer's disease 2024 drug development pipeline
An often heard critique is that the Alzheimer field is too “amyloid-centric”. The Figure below actually shows a well-diversified drug pipeline, which is highly needed.
The mechanisms of action (CADRO) for agents currently
Must read for all researchers and clinicians in the field of
#Alzheimer
's: "Evidence-based prevention of Alzheimer's disease: systematic review and meta-analysis of 243 observational prospective studies and 153 randomised controlled trials", .
@JNNP_BMJ
A petavoxel fragment of human cerebral cortex reconstructed at nanoscale resolution
Just published in Science.
This is spectacular work!
The authors obtained a 1 mm3 sample of the human temporal cortex from an individual undergoing epileptic surgery. This sample was then
What an honor to receive the Queen Silvia Research Prize from HM at Drottningholm Palace in Stockholm!
Big congratz to co-recipient
@NicholasAshton
and many thanks to Alzheimerfonden and to my brilliant colleagues
@biofinder_study
,
@AlzheimerAms
& elsewhere!
Exciting presentation of the phase 3 Donanemab results. Very effective removal of amyloid-beta pathology, a modest slowing of cognitive decline, but NO impact on tau PET signal over time (!).
#AAIC23
When does Alzheimer’s disease start?
(i.e., their provocative title, not mine)
Recent preprint at Lancet Neurology
The main results of this large-scale analysis across 3 cohorts (n=1,088 w/4,383 Amyloid PET scans):
1⃣ There is a time window of ~16.5 years between crossing the
Multifaceted roles of APOE in Alzheimer disease
Review summarizing the state-of-the-art literature on APOE and the potential of APOE-directed therapeutics.
Link >
Should APOE ε4/ε4 be considered a genetic form of AD?
Just published at Nature Medicine.
"By age 65, nearly all had abnormal amyloid levels in cerebrospinal fluid, and 75% had positive amyloid scans, with the prevalence of these markers increasing with age, indicating
NEW IWG criteria
@TheLancetNeuro
: "We recommend that
#Alzheimer
’s disease diagnosis be restricted to people w/positive biomarkers & specific AD phenotypes, while biomarker+ cognitively unimpaired individuals are considered at-
#risk
for progression to AD".
The median time interval between becoming Tau PET positive and developing dementia is ~7 years and no T+ participant remained dementia-free after 15 years.
It was pleasure to present our head-to-head comparison between plasma p-tau217 and Tau-PET for predicting future cognitive decline in >1500 cognitively unimpaired individuals from 9 cohorts.
#AAIC24
Still overwhelmed by all the kind words after my plenary at
#AAIC23
yesterday, thank you all!
Also, many thanks to the
@alzassociation
(especially
@claire_e_sexton
) for facilitating that my wife and parents could attend.
Physical exercise, cognition, and brain health in aging
Key takes:
1⃣ The effects of exercise on cognition are mediated, in part, by structural and functional adaptations in the brain, including changes in gray matter volumes and white matter microstructural integrity.
2⃣
Revised criteria for diagnosis and staging of Alzheimer’s disease
The criteria will obviously have a profound impact on the field. Couple of key points:
1⃣ Alzheimer's disease is defined as a biological process that begins with the appearance of AD neuropathologic change while
Bocancea et al. investigate the factors that allow some individuals to maintain intact brain structure and cognitive performance despite abundant tau pathology.
Key milestones in AD research
Great Figure, but I am really missing the discovery of Aβ (and Tau) PET and plasma p-tau.
1⃣ These markers have taught us a lot about disease progression in AD.
2⃣ We would not be able to run efficient clinical trials without them.
3⃣ The Aβ
🚨 NEW PREPRINT!
"Prediction of future cognitive decline among cognitively unimpaired individuals using measures of soluble phosphorylated tau or tau tangle pathology"
I am very pleased to present our most recent work!
It concerns a large multi-cohort study in which we
Dear Twitter friends.
Please help
@vermeiren_marie
and me with completing this survey on the use of
#tau
#PET
in clinic and trials. The results will be used in my
#AAIC
plenary and eventually published.
Please also SHARE and/or RETWEET!
The implications of Aβ pathology: Only time will tell
🚨 Our scientific commentary is just out in Brain!
@EmmaCoomans
and I had the privilege to write an editorial on the recent publication "Characterizing brain tau and cognitive decline along the amyloid timeline in
What an excellent PhD defense of an extraordinary thesis yesterday! Proud and pleased that
@EmmaCoomans
will continue as a postdoctoral researcher on my
@ERC_Research
project TAU-NOW.
@AlzheimerAms
Grateful to the Dutch Alzheimer foundation (
@alzheimernl
) for receiving the Young Outstanding Researcher award! A great boost for our research. Many thanks to all collaborators over the past years and congratz to the other winner,
@RensBrankaert
.
Great to see our large multi-cohort,
@UCSFmac
-led, study published
@TheLancetNeuro
(open-access)! It shows that the clinical phenotype "posterior cortical atrophy [PCA]" is highly specific for
#Alzheimer
's disease pathology.
Check out our detailed characterisation of the right temporal variant of frontotemporal dementia
@Brain1878
, ! Great work by Hulya Ulugut Erkoyun
@AlzheimerAms
.
@PhilipAlz
Some highlights from a terrific multimodal neuroimaging session covering tau spreading, neuroinflammation, diaschisis, twin design to test causality and tau PET vs plasma p-tau comparisons.
#AAIC22
Harmonizing tau PET in Alzheimer’s disease:
The CenTauR scale and the joint propagation model
A first step towards a Centiloid equivalent for Tau PET.
Great to see this published; I really enjoyed the discussions with the Working Group (and look forward to the next steps).
Excellent first plenary talk by Henrik Zetterberg, who provided a great summary of the major developments with respect to
#CSF
and blood-based
#biomarkers
in
#Alzheimer
's disease (and other neurodegenerative disorders).
#AAIC2021
Although they are delicious and beautifully designed, I look forward seeing my girls in vivo - rather than in cappuccino.
Heading back to Amsterdam now, thanks everyone for a fantastic
#AAIC22
!
Cognitively healthy centenarians have lower AD polygenic risk scores.
The genetic effects for maintaining cognitive health until extreme ages were specifically concentrated on genes associated with the endolysosomal and immune system (i.e., alleles in/near ANKH, GRN, TMEM106B,
I'm very honored to be part of this fantastic line-up for a symposium about
#tau
accumulation and progression (tomorrow [Tuesday] at 11:30am CDT). I will discuss evidence from the tau
#PET
literature and some of our ongoing/unpublished work.
#AAIC20
@biofinder_study
@AlzheimerAms
Reisa Sperling showing the A4-study neuroimaging results, showing that solanezumab did not lower amyloid levels (slide 1), hence tau PET signal kept increasing (slide 2) and cognition went down, especiallly in the highest amyloid tertile (slide 3).
#AAIC23
On the day of the Aducanumab FDA approval I went for a long run to contemplate my lack of enthusiasm regarding this milestone, but today I am genuinly excited about the
#lecanemab
phase III outcome!
(And curious to see more data
@CTADconference
)
It was a pleasure to write this editorial together w/Wiesje vd Flier
@JAMANeuro
Key sentence:
"While assessment of APOE status has never been an ancillary diagnostic test in the clinical workup of AD, this is likely to change in the dawning era of disease-modifying treatment."
And another impressive plenary lecture on the role of complement in Alzheimer’s disease by Cynthia Lemere. Very good basic neuroscience session today at
#AAIC23
!
And after a talk (in Dutch (!)) at the public session organized by the Dutch Alzheimer Association (
@alzheimernl
)
#AAIC23
has now ended…! What an fantastic week it has been, thanks everyone and have a safe trip back home!
Nick Fox making the case that excess brain volume loss associated with Lecanemab (or other effective mAB’s) is associated with the removal of “space-occupying” structures, as amyloid plaques occupy ~6-8% of the cortex in autopsy studies.
#AAIC24
Below is an opportunity to provide feedback on the updated NIA-AA criteria, presented today by Cliff Jack at
#AAIC23
.
NIA-AA Revised Clinical Guidelines for Alzheimer’s | AAIC
Happy to announce that I have been elected as program chair for the
@ISTAART
#AtypicalPIA
! I will give it my best to make an impact for this under-recognized and -studied group.
NEW: Updated prevalence estimates of
#amyloid
abnormality across the
#Alzheimer
disease clinical spectrum based on
#PET
and/or
#CSF
in 19K+ individuals, .
@JAMANeuro
Many thanks to all our collaborators!
The Atypical Alzheimer's disease PIA proudly presents this webinar on Mar 21 2022 10:00am CT (USA) on the "overlap between the language variant of AD and primary progressive aphasia" with an excellent speaker line-up!
@alzassociation
@ISTAART
@KeirYong
@BaaylaB
@Rosaleena_M
The BeyeOMARKER study design paper is out!
In BeyeOMARKER we will screen 700 individuals with plasma p-tau217 at an eye clinic, and further characterize 150 of them with Amyloid & Tau PET, MRI, retinal imaging and cognitive & cortical vision assessment.
Thanks to the great team
On my way to the Human Amyloid Imaging conference in Miami, looking forward to great science and catching up with colleagues and friends!
#HAI24
@HAIconference
Head-to-Head Comparison of Tau and Amyloid PET Visual Reads for Differential Diagnosis of Neurodegenerative Disorders: An International, Multicenter Study
Pleased to share our multicenter study led by David Soleimani-Meigooni
@UCSFmac
.
We found that Amyloid-PET and tau-PET
APOE3 Christchurch Heterozygosity and
Autosomal Dominant Alzheimer’s Disease
@ytquiroz
; I vividly remember you presenting this at our
@AtypicalPIA
symposium at AAIC. Great to see it published
@NEJM
, congrats!!!
Background: In a person with autosomal dominant Alzheimer’s disease