Funding boost for Seeing inside the brain by high-resolution cryo-electron tomography

Dr. René Frank, who previously led work that visualised protein structure within Alzheimer’s disease brain for the very first time, has teamed up with Ross Paterson (UCL) and a team of international collaborators to explore how Alzheimer’s progresses over many decades and how common genetic risk factors drive disease progression.

One of the great challenges in Alzheimer’s is how the disease spreads insidiously within the brain decades before the first symptoms start to show. Consequently, we are in some respects completely in the dark on how early-stage Alzheimer’s disease develops.

This £4.8 million study will use new integrative imaging technologies to visualise molecular and cellular structures at source within human donor tissues. We will link these structural maps to genotype and phenotype in cohorts of early and late-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

Seeing the inner workings of the human brain at this remarkable resolution is daunting but also thrilling because this has never been done before. By focusing on Alzheimer’s disease, researchers hope that a better understanding of the pathological mechanisms will open new pathways for future treatments.

“We are inspired by the growing momentum in Alzheimer’s disease research that has recently led to the first disease-modifying therapeutics. This is, of course, the beginning, and we are driven by the urgent need for better therapeutics. This award will enable us to contribute to this effort by working with patients to study the disease in new ways that we hope will rationalise and guide therapeutic development”. René Frank

Commenting on the awards, Professor Darren Tomlinson said: “We have an unrivalled environment here at Leeds, with world-class structural biology facilities and access to clinical infrastructure. Together with big investments like this, together we can drive forward innovative solutions and transform healthcare across the globe.”