The Alzheimer's Association is pleased to announce the Part the Cloud Translational Research Funding initiative to increase the research efforts in Phase I and Phase II clinical trials directed towards Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias internationally.
There is no greater healthcare need than slowing or preventing Alzheimer’s disease. The vast increase in understanding of the neurobiology of AD in recent decades, from genetic factors to amyloid accumulation, tangle formation, cellular dysfunction and synaptic failure, has led to the identification of highly promising targets for new therapies. The process of developing candidate therapies is long and complex leading to the failure of many drug development programs. The steps from target identification to the clinic includes high-throughput screening, lead optimization, establishing target engagement in vitro and in vivo, assuring central nervous system penetration, animal toxicology and finally the three phases of human testing. The full process takes many years and substantial resources, and typically involves different groups of investigators at different stages.
While many academic investigators and companies have successfully discovered candidate therapeutics, and have succeeded in the preclinical stages of development, moving into human testing can be a major stumbling block. Most government and non- government grant mechanisms support preclinical development or mid to latter clinical trials testing drug efficacy in humans, but there are few mechanisms for supporting the critical earlier human phase studies. At present, the National Institute on Aging supports AD drug development research, including basic research on target identification, animal model testing of candidate therapeutics, toxicology and proof-of-concept studies in humans. These latter human studies must be preceded by smaller, early phase studies but there are few appropriate funding mechanisms to fund the next step, Phase I trials in humans.
Deadline: March 23, 2022