ABOARD - translational research on personalized treatment strategies

The overarching goal of the project is to generate cellular models for Alzheimer’s disease to facilitate drug screening, drug testing, and patient stratification, and test promising drug candidates developed by Scenic Biotech BV in these models. The first set of models will be developed based on highly promising in vivo findings of molecular subtypes in AD. The second set will be based on the genetics of AD, and includes genetic variants linked to lysosomal and lipid dysfunction. Together, this will create a toolbox to test different drugs on several AD variants, and allow patient treatment stratification based on either biomarker or genetic analyses.

With approximately 300,000 patients, dementia represents one of the greatest challenges in healthcare today. The ultimate goal of ABOARD is a future with Personalized Medicine for AD; to bring the right treatment to the right patient. An increase in treatment options has a direct impact on the lives of many. Furthermore, dementia care is the largest expense in the Ministry of Health, totalling €6.6 billion each year, driven mainly by nursing home costs. So delaying institutionalization could save billions.

Our project uses cutting-edge stem cell differentiation techniques to create novel tools to facilitate drug discovery for AD, and we test promising novel drugs that act on a shared mechanism found to be deregulated in AD. In summary, we generate novel cell models based on molecular subtypes and genetic variants of AD, and test promising new molecules developed by Scenic Biotech BV in these models.