Current and Future Treatment of Alzheimer Disease

  • 27 October 2022
    4:00 PM
  • University Campus Bohunice (pavilion B11/ seminar room 132)

Lecture will be held in English

Speaker

Professor Bengt Winblad,

Group leader

Professor Bengt Winblad, MD, PhD has been involved in the field of dementia research for many years. He became MD 1971 and took his PhD in 1975 at the University of Umeå, Sweden, where he became a Docent in 1977 and Professor of Geriatric Medicine and Chief Physician in 1982. Bengt Winblad has since been a guest professor at the Department of Psychiatry in Frankfurt and honorary professor at Beijing University, Wuhan University and Shanghai University in China. Currently, he is working in Stockholm, Sweden as Professor of Geriatric Medicine at the Karolinska Institutet and is Chief Physician at Karolinska University in Huddinge.

Professor Winblad has been involved in numerous professional appointments and university activities. These have included being a member of the Advisory Committee for the Medical Research Council. He is co-chairing the European Alzheimer Disease Consortium (EADC) and presently chairing the Medical Scientific Advisory Panel of the Alzheimer Disease International (ADI). He is also a member of the Nobel Assembly for the Prize of Medicine and Physiology at the Karolinska Institutet. Professor Winblad is the Head of the KI-Alzheimer Disease Research Center in Huddinge including KASPAC (KI Dainippon Sumitomo Alzheimer Center), as well as the Director of the Swedish Brain Power research network.

Bengt Winblads research interests focus on the epidemiology, genetics and treatment of dementia conditions, especially Alzheimers disease. He has been presented with a number of awards for his contribution to this research area. He has taken the initiative regarding pharmaceutical treatment (memantine and later donepezil) of patients with severe Alzheimers disease. Professor Winblad has been a tutor for more than 150 PhD dissertations and has published more than 1000 original publications in the field of gerontology/geriatrics/dementia research.


More info about prof. Winblad

Hosted by

Irena Rektorová

About the lecture

"Current and Future Treatment of Alzheimer Disease"

Background: Today, 50 million people are affected by dementia. The worldwide prevalence of dementia is expected to reach 75 million in 2030. So far, no cure or highly significant symptom relieving is available. Still, during the autumn 2022 new data will come from two phase II trials on anti-amyloid immunotherapy.

Methods: Increased understanding of the pathophysiology of Alzheimer disease (AD) has given us new therapeutic targets. Many clinical and experimental studies are ongoing, mainly based on anti-amyloid-β (Aβ) strategies, but the exact role played by Aβ in AD pathogenesis is not clear. Lately, also active immunotherapy studies on tau are introduced and we see an increase in trials with this approach. Preclinical research is constantly providing us with new information of the complex AD puzzle.Synapses are viewed as critical sites for the initiation of AD and loss of synapses is considered the best pathological correlate of cognitive decline in AD.One approach to rescue the synapses would be to identify small molecule inhibitors that could inhibit the interaction between chaperones and co-chaperones. This would be a good strategy to modify the underlying intracellular mechanisms. Furthermore, antibodies will be generated against different synaptic protein aggregates. New research findings will make these antibodies more able to pass both the blood-brain-barrier and into the neuronal cells.Other novel approaches based on basic research findings include affecting inflammation, cholesterol, metabolic disorders like DM type 2 and microbiota, will be discussed.

Conclusion: Our hope for the future is not only to give the patient an early symptomatic relief but that new therapies could potentially slow or even halt the progression of the disease. Increased global collaboration between academia, industry and regulatory authorities is a vital step for a successful drug development.

 

Registration for lunch with the speaker /for Ph.D. students/

The sponsored lunch usually takes place in the Campus River restaurant. Please meet the speaker and other students at 12:45 at the reception desk at the main entrance (building B22, see the map below).

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