Curtin University has been awarded $637,536 in Federal Government funding to explore new treatment opportunities for patients who are at an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Federal Minister for Health, the Hon Greg Hunt, today announced the project, which will be led by Professor John Mamo from the Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute (CHIRI) based at Curtin University, was successful in the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) 2020 Ideas grants.
Curtin’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research Professor Chris Moran congratulated Professor Mamo and his team on their funding success.
“This project is based on a remarkable discovery which suggests that in some individuals, Alzheimer’s disease may be caused by damaged microscopic blood vessels that directly supply the brain. These vessels have been damaged by a protein found in the blood that is produced in the liver,” Professor Moran said.
“With this new funding, Professor Mamo and his team will use state-of-the-art techniques and pre-clinical models to study the effects of this protein on neurovascular integrity and cognitive performance. The findings from this research will help to mitigate the risk for early onset and progressive Alzheimer’s disease.
“Professor Mamo and his team at CHIRI have been leading significant research into the causes and treatments of Alzheimer’s disease and this funding will further support their work in this space. I would like to congratulate them for being recognised by the Federal Government for their ground-breaking work which is having a real-world impact.”
The team will include experts with a wide-range of aptitudes including Dr Virginie Lam, Dr Hani Al-Salami, and Associate Professor Ryusuke Takechi from CHIRI, Emeritus Professor Satvinder Singh Dhaliwal from Curtin’s School of Public Health, Professor Gerald Watts, Professor Leon Flicker, Associate Professor Michael Bynevelt, and Associate Professor Roslyn Francis from The University of Western Australia, and Associate Professor Roger Clarnette from Fremantle Hospital.
The project is titled, The interactive effects of dietary saturated fat and apolipoprotein-E genotype on peripheral metabolism of lipoprotein-amyloid and neurovascular integrity.
Further information on the successful NHMRC grants can be found online here.
