An atlas to predict and prevent dementia

Ben Lehner

Centre de Regulació Genòmica (CRG), Spain

Neurodegenerative diseases are associated with the pathological accumulation of certain proteins in the brain. Beta-amyloid forms plaques in Alzheimer’s disease, the alpha-synuclein, and in Parkinson’s disease, and tau is associated with frontotemporal dementia.

In addition, certain mutations cause some people to develop less frequent and more aggressive forms of these dementias which accelerate the accumulation of these proteins in the brain and the subsequent neurodegeneration.

The project contributes to better understanding the variants that cause these dementias and to developing a reference atlas of thousands of mutations to predict whether a person is more susceptible to dementia. It will also help to develop new prevention strategies.

Institut de Bioenginyeria de Catalunya IBEC, Spain

Massively parallel mutagenesis to understand, predict and prevent amyloid nucleation in neurodegenerative diseases.

€994,048.9