Welcome to the AMYPAD newsletter!
Dear all,
We have now entered the final (6th) year of AMYPAD, and I hope you enjoyed the general assembly meeting in early October like I did. You will find a dedicated report in this newsletter. Short of having an in-person meeting and being able to chat in the coffee breaks, the meeting was informative and engaging, with nice contributions from our external advisors and IMI project officer. We received positive feedback about AMYPAD as a project in being cohesive and effective, not only in reaching its scientific targets, but also in creating a community and societal impact.
Increasingly, we are putting efforts towards maintaining the momentum of AMYPAD and sustaining our pearls – cohorts, scans, software, network and many more. Human capital is probably the most important driver of our project, and it is great to see that again two PhD theses stemming from AMYPAD have been completed. In this newsletter, you can read more details about the work of Fiona Heeman and Marthe Smedinga and about new PhD students and other scientific contributors joining.
AMYPAD keeps being in the spotlights with presentations at EANM, CTAD and NRM this quarter, and various oral presentations already accepted for AD/PD next March, when we can hopefully meet again in person.
The year 2022 will be crucial in terms of publishing the results of the Diagnostic and Patient Management Study (DPMS) and start of the modelling analyses in the AMYPAD Prognostic and Natural History Study (PNHS). I am thrilled that though the hard work of many, David Vállez García was able to share the first internal data-release of PNHS data allowing the consortium to collaboratively mine our treasures in the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative (ADDI) portal. Early next year we hope to release bigger chunks of data from an increasing number of parent cohorts and collaborators. This again testifies that AMYPAD is becoming more than an individual project but brings together imaging and biomarkers researchers across Europe. We are working with our friends in EPAD and beyond to maintain these activities well after the IMI funding period.
This electronic newsletter will be published quarterly and be accessible via the AMYPAD website. In this issue, we present you the AMYPAD GA meting and AMYPAD’s participation in relevant events. In addition, you can also get to know two AMYPAD collaborators, Sophie Elise Mastenbroek and Jack Weatheritt, who share some of their expectations with us.
Frederik Barkhof
AMYPAD Coordinator
|
|
In the spotlight - AMYPAD GA meeting
|
|
|
On 8 and 9 October, the “Amyloid imaging to Prevent Alzheimer’s disease” ( AMYPAD) consortium held its annual General Assembly as a virtual meeting. We were delighted that the event brought together over 90 AMYPAD delegates to report on the progress of the project, to exchange ideas and discuss upcoming activities.
AMYPAD opted to hold the meeting in an online format. It was an invigorating General Assembly meeting to review the progress made so far, plan for the last year of the project and discuss the future of AMYPAD beyond IMI. The team is looking forward to a productive year ahead and to meeting everyone face to face again.
|
|
|
Meet some of the AMYPAD collaborators
|
|
|
Interview with Sophie Elise Mastenbroek
Recently, I re-joined the AMYPAD team in September 2021 as a PhD student. My research focus lies on heterogeneity in Alzheimer’s disease, addressing several research questions regarding resilience against Alzheimer’s disease related pathology, subtypes in amyloid accumulation, and more...
|
|
|
Interview with Jack Weatheritt
I am working on a tool for trial design optimisation. The primary goal is to provide a modelling framework that can help enrich clinical trials. As a research engineer at IXICO, my job is to translate latest trends in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and deep learning into clinically relevant tools... |
|
|
Highlights of the past quarter
|
|
|
Two AMYPAD researchers successfully defended their PhD thesis
The AMYPAD consortium would like to congratulate Marthe Smedinga and Fiona Heeman on successfully defending their PhD thesis. We are proud of their contributions and all their hard work – very well deserved! We wish them all the best in their future endeavours! Here is a chance to get to know them and learn more about their thesis.
In her thesis entitled "Diseased without symptoms. The moral desirability of Alzheimer biomarker testing", Marthe investigated whether testing Alzheimer biomarkers in clinical practice is desirable, through a literature review and interviews with physicians. She also discussed how the framing of ‘Alzheimer’ can steer the weighing of the arguments in a debate.
The overall aim of Fiona's thesis entitled "Quantitative amyloid PET imaging in Alzheimer’s disease - Walking the line between accuracy and simplicity" was to evaluate to what extent approaches for quantification of Aβ pathology using PET can be simplified, within the context of different applications.
"I am very grateful that I could learn so much being a part of AMYPAD, and very grateful for the nice people that I have met. One of the cool things about joining the project was seeing different countries and cultures working together.", said Marthe.
"I have absolutely enjoyed my time as a PhD student on the AMYPAD project. As a large, multicentre project, AMYPAD offered the opportunity to learn from and work together with researchers from various academic and cultural backgrounds.", said Fiona.
|
|
|
EANM congress (online)
20-23 October 2021
Lyduine Collij (VUmc) gave a talk entitled “Visual assessment and Centiloid quantification across diagnostic groups: the AMYPAD project” during the 34th Annual EANM congress of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine...
|
|
|
CTAD (Boston, online)
9-12 November 2021
Several AMYPAD members had the opportunity to travel and spend few days in Boston to discuss science and interact with delegates at CTAD, which combined an onsite meeting with on-demand scientific content on a digital platform...
|
|
|
Upcoming event
- 31th Alzheimer Europe Conference (AEC)
29 November-1 December 2021, Online
- Mapping NeuroReceptors at Work 2021 (NRM)
14-16 December 2021, Online |
|
|
|
|
|
|
