With a NOK 40 million (approx. €3.5 million) grant, Professor Srdjan Djurovic at the University of Oslo aims to identify early blood-based biomarkers that can predict who is at increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. The goal is to intervene before the brain sustains irreversible damage – and ultimately to prevent the disease from developing at all.

Alzheimer’s disease progresses slowly over many years, from mild early symptoms to severe cognitive decline by the time a diagnosis is made. There is currently no effective cure, and the number of people living with Alzheimer’s is rising worldwide.This new project asks a critical question: what if it were possible to delay, or even prevent, the onset of Alzheimer’s disease?

Professor Srdjan Djurovic, at the Centre for Precision Psychiatry (SPP) at the University of Oslo (UiO), and the Department of Medical Genetics at Oslo University Hospital (OUS), has been awarded NOK 40 million by the Research Council of Norway (RCN). He will lead the effort in identifying key biomarkers that can predict Alzheimer’s disease, long before symptoms appear, by combining innovative research methods with large-scale patient data. “This may be decisive for early prevention and could provide a breakthrough in how Alzheimer’s disease is diagnosed and treated,” he says.

World-leading Alzheimer’s research
The project “Multimodal metabolic markers for mechanisms and predictive trajectories of Alzheimer’s disease” marks the first time the RCN has awarded project funding specifically aimed at building world-leading research environments in Norway. “This grant is truly a great honour, and it is a pleasure to work with highly skilled colleagues, from Centre for Precision Psychiatry, led by Professor Ole A. Andreassen, from the Department of Medical Genetics, as well as other leading research groups in Norway and across Scandinavia,” Djurovic adds.

Predicting risk of Alzheimer’s disease to enable prevention
To make prevention possible, clinicians need reliable tools to identify who is at increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease before irreversible neurodegeneration begins.Djurovic and his team therefore intend to uncover biological signs of Alzheimer’s disease that appear prior to the onset of clinical symptoms.
“A major challenge is that we still do not know how to best predict whether an individual will develop Alzheimer’s disease in the near future,” Djurovic says. “Identifying early markers of disease risk will be crucial for making a diagnosis early enough. We could then promptly refer individuals in high-risk groups for treatment or preventive interventions.”

The researchers believe that hereditary metabolic and protein markers in the blood may serve as early biological indicators of increased Alzheimer’s risk. They will test this hypothesis using advanced technologies for blood sample analysis
“We are going to ‘go back in time’ by analysing blood samples from earlier Norwegian population-based studies,” Djurovic says.
These samples were collected many years before participants might have developed Alzheimer’s disease, giving researchers access to uniquely valuable long-term data.The data from the blood samples will then be combined with information from national health registries, which track participants across their lifetimes, including who goes on to develop Alzheimer’s disease.
“By linking historical blood samples with registry data from many years later, we hope to identify blood-based biomarkers that are associated with the development of Alzheimer’s disease,” he explains.

When do blood tests first show that something is wrong?
For the most promising biomarkers they discover, Djurovic and his colleagues will determine how accurately these markers can predict Alzheimer’s disease over time in large patient datasets. They will then study how these biomarkers relate to clinical decline and changes in the brain. The researchers will also trace the development of biomarkers backwards in time from the point of diagnosis. “By following the biomarkers from diagnosis and back in time, we will be able to identify the moment when each marker first begins to deviate from normal levels,” the Professor says.To achieve this, the project will combine multiple types of data, including age-dependent genetic and environmental factors, metabolomics, proteomics, cognitive tests, MRI brain images, and repeated blood measurements over time.

Developing a personal Alzheimer’s “avatar” to predict disease
The project may result in a personal “Alzheimer’s avatar”: an algorithm that combines genetic information, environmental factors, blood biomarkers, brain imaging and cognitive data to create an individual risk profile. This tool could help predict whether, and when, a person is at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
“Such tools can help doctors anticipate when symptoms are most likely to start, and to decide who should be offered preventive measures or invited to participate in clinical trials,” Djurovic explains. “This ambitious project could provide crucial insight into what triggers Alzheimer’s disease, highlight new targets for medicines, and support the development of treatments or interventions that can delay the onset of the disease, both in Norway and around the world.”

The news article was alos published here: NOK 40 million to predict and prevent Alzheimer’s disease - Institute of Clinical Medicine