£1.3M grant for largest search for Alzheimer’s genes

Grant award

The UK medical research charity the Wellcome Trust has given a grant of £1.3 million to scientists at Cardiff University to scan the human genome for genes that predispose people to, or protect them from, developing Alzheimer’s disease.

The team, led by Julie Williams, will use genome-wide association scanning to analyse DNA samples taken from 14,000 people, comprising 6,000 with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease and 8,000 healthy control samples from the UK and US, to identify common genetic variations that increase the risk of the disease.

“Alzheimer’s is a genetically complicated story involving many genes, so we need large sample sizes to make sure any genetic links that we find are not mere coincidence,” says Williams. “With access to 14,000 DNA samples, our study is the largest genetic study [of] Alzheimer’s.”

Williams believes it is very likely the research will throw up some unexpected associations. “We know already that certain genes are involved in more than one form of dementia and that even genes that affect cholesterol level can be a risk factor for Alzheimer’s. We need to build a complete picture of the different pathways that lead to the disease. With this knowledge, we should, in time, be able to derive tangible clinical benefits.”

Genome-wide association scanning involves the study of 500,000 genetic markers across the human genome. Work on genotyping the DNA samples will be performed by Panos Deloukas’s group at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge.

The project has been welcomed by Rebecca Wood, Chief Executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust: ”This is an exciting project that could lead to real progress in our understanding of Alzheimer’s. We are delighted to see this research receive such a huge boost after we funded the initial collection of tissues together with the Medical Research Council.”