RESEARCH GRANT. Professor Henrik Zetterberg, Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry at Sahlgrenska Academy, is awarded NOK ten million for new brain research for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease from the Olav Thon Foundation in Norway.
“This support from the Olav Thon Foundation gives us an opportunity to look at something that has never been done before. We have assembled a brand new and unique team of researchers from Sweden, Norway and Denmark, which will be examining the brain’s own waste management cells, the microglia, in order to see whether they contribute to triggering Alzheimer’s or if they could help to prevent the progression of this disease. No-one has ever studied the role of microglia in Alzheimer’s disease,” says Henrik Zetterberg and continues:
“In this study, we will attempt to stimulate these brain cells to see if a more active microglia contributes to slowing the progression of the disease.”
The studies will be carried out using test animals, and parts of the project will also use unique patient data from Lund University in order to study the role of microglia. The data covers approximately one thousand patients with both Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s, who have been monitored over a period of six years.
“The time frame for our research is between four and five years,” says Henrik Zetterberg.
Henrik Zetterberg is a professor and physician, as well as head of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurochemistry at the University of Gothenburg. The research project “Microglia – a possible treatment target for Alzheimer’s disease?” has been awarded funding of NOK ten million over four years. In addition to Professor Henrik Zetterberg, the project is conducted by Professor Oskar Hansson, Lund University, Professor Lars Nilsson and Professor Anders Fjell, University of Oslo, and Professor David Brooks, Aarhus University, Denmark.
This year, the Olav Thon Foundation awarded a total of NOK 43 million to prominent research and education within medicine and science. This is the fourth year that the foundation is giving out grants and awards. Olav Thon, 93, was one of the richest men in Norway in 2013, when he transferred assets of around NOK 25 billion to the Olav Thon Foundation. The foundation gives out grants and awards of NOK 50 million each year.
