Making up my Mind: Where are my Neurons? Event

Alzheimer’s: can we cure it?

Dr Diego Gomez-Nicola (Career Track Lecturer in Biomedical Sciences, MRC NIRG Research Fellow)

Our brain is the most exciting organ of all. It allows us to talk, sing, paint and many other things that make us human beings. But these features come at a price: we suffer from diseases like Alzheimer’s, which erases all the things in our brain that make us so special. But, what can science do to fight this devastating disease off? How far are we from finding a cure for Alzheimer’s? In his talk, Diego will talk us about what causes our brain to degenerate and how research is getting closer to tackling Alzheimer’s.

Dementia is a disease of building up waste in the brain

Dr Roxana Carare (Associate Professor of Clinical Anatomy)

Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the most common form of dementia, affects more than 850,000 people in the UK alone and costs £17 billion annually in care and treatment. Our results show that tiny channels about a millionth of the thickness of a strand of hair in the walls of the blood vessels of our brain are the pathways for drainage of waste from the brain. By protecting these channels and understanding how they work we will also be able to protect our community from developing dementia.