2019: The Hague

The first parallel session was chaired by Lennert Steukers from Janssen. Elisabetta Vaudano (Principal Scientific Officer) introduced the work of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) on neurodegenerative disease. Carlos Diaz (Project Coordinator) presented an overview of the Neuronet project. Ana Diaz (Project Officer & Co-coordinator of the European Working Group of People with Dementia) highlighted the importance of meaningful patient and public involvement in IMI research projects.

The second parallel session was chaired by Craig Ritchie, Director of the Centre for Dementia Prevention at Edinburgh University. In this session, leaders of the ADAPTED, PHAGO and AETIONOMY projects presented their work on characterising some of the key molecular drivers of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), such as the ApoE genetic risk factor and the innate immune receptors CD33 and TREM2.

The third parallel session was chaired by Jacoline Bouvy of NICE. Four IMI projects were presented in this session: EQIPD, EMIF, ROADMAP and IM2PACT. The EQIPD project is developing a framework for improving research quality, aiming to improve the drug development pipeline, while the EMIF and ROADMAP projects showcased the new platforms and tools they have developed to help researchers visualise and access clinical research data and real-world evidence. This session finished with a presentation on the IM2PACT project, which is working to understand the blood-brain-barrier in health and disease.

The fourth Neuronet session was chaired by José Luis Molinuevo, Neuronet Scientific Coordination Board member. AMYPAD and EPAD, two sister projects of the IMI neurodegeneration portfolio, highlighted their achievements in using amyloid-PET scans to diagnose AD (AMYPAD), and in creating clinical trial registries and cohorts of people at risk of developing Alzheimer’s dementia (EPAD). The leader of the MOPEAD project then presented the four patient engagement models that they are currently testing, aiming to improve early patient engagement in clinical trials.  The final Neuronet session was brought to a close with a presentation on the RADAR-AD project, which is exploring how digital technologies can be used non-invasively to measure the progression of disability associated with AD.