PET Tracers for Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) accounts for over half of all dementia and represents a major and increasing problem in many developed countries; as the average age of the population increases the financial burden will rise significantly. There are currently around 700,000 people in the UK with dementia and this number is expected to rise to over a million by 2025 and over 1.7 million by 2051. Consequently there is significant effort being directed at developing effective treatments for AD. Imaging biomarkers have a significant role to play in this effort. Specific markers of AD may be used to diagnose patients, to help in drug development, to select patients who are most likely to benefit from a particular therapy or to monitor their response. Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is the most sensitive method for imaging function in-vivo. Therefore, in this project, we aim to develop specific PET imaging biomarkers for AD.

This project has been funded as part of the Sinapse Consortium, in partnership with Pfizer.

Project Team: Professor Matteo Zanda, Dr Bettina Platt, Professor Alison Murray and Professor Andy Welch