The 2023 edition of the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) drew over 7,000 delegates from around the world to Amsterdam. AAIC is always a hive of activity and excitement, and this year was no exception: between 16-20 July, over 3,000 presentations were delivered by global experts on disease mechanisms, biomarkers, diagnosis, treatment and care.

We were delighted to present EPND at AAIC – and have a presence in the exhibit hall, thanks to our colleagues at the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative! Our co-Coordinator Pieter-Jelle Visser, Professor of Molecular Epidemiology of AD at the University of Maastricht, gave a poster presentation of EPND on Wednesday 18 July, explaining how we are removing barriers to data and sample sharing, and fostering collaboration. In his presentation, he highlighted an important new development for EPND: the launch of our Cohort Catalogue, which brings together information on 69 research cohorts involving 180,825 research participants:

"To ensure the Cohort Catalogue would be as useful as possible, we incorporated a vast array of metadata for each cohort, including whether plasma and cerebrospinal fluid samples are included, or MRI or amyloid PET scan images,” Pieter-Jelle explained; “This way, researchers have a single location to easily search – and discover – the complete landscape of neurodegenerative disease cohorts across Europe, and beyond.” 

Elsewhere at AAIC, our partner Marina Boccardi, Professor of Implementation Neuroscience at the University of Rostock, presented a poster on the use of Target Product Profiles (TPP) in academic research. TPPs are widely used in industry, to address, define and communicate user needs in the drug development process. In her systemic review, carried out as part of the sustainability workstream in EPND, Marina identified a large number of publications on TPPs for infectious diseases, but found that these useful tools are rarely used in dementia research.

We were very grateful to our fantastic colleagues at ADDI for enabling us to highlight EPND in the exhibit hall. Our communications partner, Angela Bradshaw (Project Officer at Alzheimer Europe), was a featured guest at their display, explaining how EPND can support researchers wanting to share or access data and samples from neurodegeneration cohorts. Thanks to everyone who stopped by! We look forward to seeing you next year, at #24AAIC.

Mark the dates of AAIC 2024 in your calendars: 28th July to 1 August, in Philadelphia.