April 2024 • PharmaTimes Magazine • 9

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Roche partners with Cardiff researchers to uncover new research into dementia

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Roche and the Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC) have partnered to uncover new research to understand the structural changes of dementia.

Using cutting-edge imaging and machine learning (ML), researchers will analyse the brains of patients living with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Dementia is a general term used for the impaired ability to remember, think or make decisions that interferes with day-to-day activities and affects 55 million people globally, according to Alzheimer’s Society.

Currently the most common form of dementia, AD is a progressive neurological disease that affects the part of the brain that controls thought, memory and language.

PD is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects the body’s nervous system. The main symptoms include shaking, slow movements and stiffness.

The study will use advanced MRI to understand the bigger structural changes in the brain that occur in PD and AD to changes at a microscopic level to help advance earlier detection of the diseases in a non-invasive way.

According to professor Derek Jones, school of psychology, director or CUBRIC, researchers will utilise the Siemen’s Connectom scanner and Siemens 7T MRI, as well as mathematical modelling and cutting-edge ML, “to investigate small and large changes in the brain of those with PD and AD”.


Study shows children with amblyopia are at risk of disease in adulthood

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A new study led by researchers at University College London (UCL) and other collaborators has revealed that adults who experienced amblyopia as children are more likely to experience serious diseases in adulthood.

Published in eClinicalMedicine, the study was funded by the Medical Research Council, the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR), and the Ulverscroft Foundation.

Affecting up to four in 100 children, amblyopia, otherwise known as a ‘lazy eye,’ is a neurodevelopmental condition where the vision in one eye does not develop properly, caused by a breakdown in how the brain and eye work together.

Carried out alongside seven other collaborators, including King’s College London, the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre and Great Ormond Street Hospital, researchers analysed more than 126,000 people aged 40 to 69 years from the UK Biobank cohort who had an ocular examination.

Out of 3,238 patients who reported having amblyopia in childhood, 82.2% were found to have had persistently reduced vision in one eye as adults.

In addition, the findings showed that patients with childhood amblyopia had 29% higher odds of developing diabetes, a 25% increased risk of having hypertension and a 16% higher risk of having obesity, as well as an increased risk of heart attack.


HOT & NOT

The NHS has announced that it’s set to roll out artificial intelligence (AI) to help improve waiting times for elective care and reduce the number of missed appointments.

New data has shown that 6.4% of over 125 million outpatient appointments across the NHS in England last year were not attended by the patient, specifically for physiotherapy, cardiology, ophthalmology, trauma and orthopaedics.  Additionally, missed appointments are predicted to cost the NHS a total of £1.2bn, annually.


AbbVie’s Produodopa has been accepted by the Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) for use within NHS Scotland to treat advanced levodopa-responsive Parkinson’s disease (PD).

PD patients with severe motor fluctuations and hyperkinesia or dyskinesia when previous available combinations of PD medicinal products have not provided satisfactory results and who are not eligible for deep brain stimulation will be eligible for the treatment. Affecting around 12,400 people in Scotland, PD is a progressive neurological disorder that results from the loss of dopamine-producing brain cells.


The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) has announced it has been selected to receive a Cancer Grand Challenges (CGC) award of up to $25m to research the challenges of solid tumours in children.

First launched in 2020 by Cancer Research UK (CRUK) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), CGC now brings together 1,200 researchers and 16 teams worldwide to take on 13 of “cancer’s toughest challenges”.

Currently the leading cause of death due to disease among children globally, most outcomes for some childhood cancers have not improved in more than three decades.


Researchers from University College London (UCL), in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, have revealed that impaired spatial navigation could determine the risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) before the onset of symptoms. Researchers used virtual reality (VR) to test the spatial navigation of 100 asymptomatic adults from the PREVENT-Dementia study.

Affecting around 900,000 people in the UK, AD is a neurodegenerative disorder that progressively destroys memory, thinking skills and the ability to carry out simple day-to-day tasks.


The NHS has announced it is targeting young adults to catch up on their missed measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines as part of the NHS catch-up campaign. In England, more than 900,000 adults aged 19 to 25 years will be invited to book an appointment for their missed vaccine.

Following on from the national health service’s recent reminder for 200,000 16- to 19-year-olds to receive the MMR vaccine, the NHS campaign will target young adults in areas more at risk – the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and London.


Imperial College London (ICL) researchers have revealed there could be small but long-lasting impacts on the performance of cognitive and memory tasks in people who have recovered from COVID-19.

The REACT Long COVID study enrolled over 140,000 participants, including long COVID patients, who undertook at least one cognitive task.

COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. For some patients, the condition can lead to long COVID, where symptoms can last up to 12 weeks.