ATRI Highlights Alzheimer's Research at 2024 NIH Summit

ATRI is excited to participate in the NIH Alzheimer’s Disease Research Summit 2024 on September 23-25 at the NIH Natcher Conference Center. This year's Summit, themed “Building a Precision Medicine Research Enterprise,” will feature ATRI’s esteemed researchers, Robert Rissman, PhD, Sarah Walter, MSc, and Gustavo Jimenez-Maggiora, PhD, MBA.  Also included among the 70 experts are many of our Alzheimer’s Clinical Trial Consortium (ACTC) and clinical trial and study partners. Visit NIH.gov to register to attend the event either in-person or livestream.

The NIH Alzheimer's Research Summits are key strategic planning meetings tied to the implementation of the first goal of the National Plan to Address Alzheimer's Disease: to effectively treat and prevent Alzheimer's disease by 2025. This year’s focus on precision medicine is only possible due to the accelerated progress made through multi-stakeholder collaboration, including government, academia, and advocacy groups for people living with dementia and care partners.

“Beginning the Summit with a panel of community members sharing their lived experience of dementia ensures the entire Summit is centered on the needs of communities. Inclusive research is needed, and the panel “Participants as Direct Partners in Research” on Day 2 will share why this is important and how researchers can build meaningful partnerships.” said Walter.

Rissman stated, "The road to developing plasma biomarkers has been long, and we are finally at the place where we can reliably predict Alzheimer's amyloid pathology in plasma without PET scans or CSF tests.  Going forward, our work will refine these plasma tests and examine their specificity across diverse populations, which is crucial for our strides towards precision medicine in Alzheimer’s research."

Jimenez-Maggiora’s presentation will highlight how ATRI’s long-standing commitment to data sharing is the foundation for meeting the ultimate goal of prevention.  Starting 20 years ago, with the longitudinal data from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative to the most recent A4 and LEARN studies, there is excitement from our data-sharing partners, including Bill Gates, about this next decade.

"Broad and timely data sharing is central to NIA and ATRI's strategy for accelerating Alzheimer's therapy development,” says Jimenez-Maggiora.

“By collaborating with other AD research programs, we are building a global data ecosystem that enables investigators to explore numerous repositories across basic, translational, and clinical research. Integrating real-world data from electronic health records, including evidence on newly approved anti-amyloid therapies, will set the stage for further discoveries in precision medicine for Alzheimer's disease.”

ATRI’s participation underscores its commitment to these collaborative efforts and its role at the forefront of the Alzheimer’s research community from very different areas of expertise.

The Alzheimer’s Clinical Trial Consortium (ACTC) is funded by a Cooperative Agreement from the National Institutes of Health's National Institute on Aging (U24AG057437.) This content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging.