Scientists’ Alzheimer’s research wins medal

A PhD student at the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research (CIMR), Richard Page, has been hailed as one of the UK’s top young scientists after being awarded the 2006 Westminster Medal in conjunction with Dr Christopher Mee of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Functional Genetics Unit (FGU) in Oxford.

Richard Page, from Downing College, joined forces with Dr Mee to create a presentation about their collaborative research work on 'The Alzheimer's Fly: A model organism for the study of Alzheimer's disease'. This work is a collaboration between the laboratories of Dr Crowther and Professor Lomas (CIMR) and Professor Sattelle (MRC FGU).

They were awarded the Westminster Medal at the annual Science Week reception at the House of Commons, an event that features displays of research work by over 150 of Britain's leading younger scientists, engineers and technologists.

Alzheimer's disease is an irreversible neurodegenerative disorder resulting in the progressive deterioration of cognitive function and memory, as well as changes in personality and behaviour. It is the leading cause of dementia worldwide and, with the increasing longevity of the UK population, the disease is becoming ever more prevalent.

To explore the mechanism of neurodegeneration, a model of Alzheimer's disease has been developed by expressing human amyloid peptides, which are abundant in the brains of human patients, in the brain of the fruitfly. As a model organism, the fruitfly has the distinct advantages of a short life cycle, providing a tractable time-scale for studying neurodegeneration and a well-characterised genome with significant similarities to our own. The long term goal is to use the fly to develop new therapies for Alzheimer's disease.

Medal-winning Richard Page is a final-year PhD student working with Dr Damian Crowther in Professor Lomas' group in Cambridge and has pioneered the genetic analysis of Alzheimer's disease pathways in the fly brain. He is now using human cell culture to investigate some of the genes that have been identified in his fly experiments. Dr Damian Crowther said of the young scientists' achievement: "Richard and Chris clearly impressed the judges with the profound implications that their work will have in finding new treatments for Alzheimer's disease. We are all working hard to build on this success."

Professor David Lomas added: "I am delighted that the work of both groups has been recognised with this award. We believe that our work on the fruit fly will provide new insights into the mechanisms that underlie Alzheimer's disease. Our long term goal is to turn these new understandings into novel therapies to treat this devastating disease."

Dr Mee is a post-doctoral researcher in Professor David Sattelle's group in Oxford and has been working on the actions of amyloid peptides on neuronal function in fruitfly neurons. Dr Mee said: "We have pursued studies on model organisms for the excellent scientific opportunities they can offer and the potential future benefits for human health. It is an added bonus that the work has been recognised in this way. The excellent collaboration between the two laboratories has greatly accelerated our progress."