Record dollars in dementia research

The Alzheimer’s Australia Dementia Research Foundation has announced a number of new grants worth $1.6 million for young and emerging researchers last Friday.

Alzheimer’s Australia’s national president, Ita Buttrose, says the grants are made possible through the generous donations of companies and individual donors.

“Community support for researchers is vital to help us find ways to better support people living with dementia,” Ms Buttrose says. “Alzheimer’s Australia would now like to see the government match this support by providing much better investment in dementia research,” she adds.

In 2011-12, the National Health and Medical Research Council reportedly allocated only $24 million for dementia research, compared with $159.2 million for cancer research, $92.4 million for cardiovascular disease research and $71.2 million for diabetes research.

According to Ms Buttrose, the Council has awarded only 56 grants, scholarships and fellowships to new dementia researchers in the past decade. In comparison the number of grants for cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes were about 700, 500 and 250 respectively.

“With dementia already the third leading cause of death in Australia, it is imperative that the government increases its investment in research to $200 million over the next five years. This will allow us to successfully build the capacity of Australian researchers and help them find ways of delaying the onset of dementia, to treat symptoms and even better, to stop dementia altogether,” she says.

Drs Timothy Ryan, Alex Bahar-Fuchs and Karen Mather are among 25 of Australia’s up and coming researchers who will benefit from the foundation’s latest round of grants.

Dr Ryan has been awarded the Foundation’s Full Fellowship of $90,000 per annum for his project which looks at identifying and validating Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers in red blood cells.

Dr Bahar-Fuchs’ research will examine cognitive training in people with mild cognitive impairment, and Dr Mather will undertake research into genetic and epigenetic variation and early markers of late onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s Australia Dementia Research Grants 2013 will open early next month.