By Dr Jing Yang Tee, Principal Scientist, Evinco Therapeutics

The Australian Dementia Research Forum (ADRF) conference was recently attended by more than 500 local and international clinicians and academic researchers, covering important topics on both ends of the bench-to-bedside spectrum – basic science on one end and allied health on the other.

Significant advances are being made in the early and accurate diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Emerging blood biomarkers, including phospho-tau181 and phosphor-tau217, have demonstrated strong correlation with  amyloid PET imaging and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) pathology. These developments are being complimented by sensitive FDA-approved and emerging p-Tau diagnostic tests, such as Lumipulse G by Fujirebio and Elecsys by Roche, as well as cognitive screening tools, including the TAS Test led by the Wicking Dementia Centre. In parallel, artificial intelligence is enhancing diagnostic capabilities through technologies such as CSIRO’s DeepSUVR, which enables longitudinal analysis of PET scans to support earlier detection and monitoring of disease progression.    

There was also a strong emphasis on allied health, particularly addressing societal stigma around AD, public health policy to improve detection and patient care, GP participation in dementia diagnosis and care. A shift in perspective was emphasised to approach AD as a brain health condition rather than just an “illness”, where shifting the therapeutic window towards the preclinical and prodromal phases may be critical to improve treatment outcomes.

Altogether, the field is moving forward at pace towards solving the ‘who’ (early diagnosis and patient stratification), the ‘what’ (clinical diagnosis, co-pathologies and disease biomarkers), the ‘when’ (best therapeutic window of intervention), but there is still much to be done in the ‘how’ therapeutic space (How do we effectively treat people living with AD or help prevent people at risk of developing AD). The ‘how’ challenge is embraced by Evinco Therapeutics where we hope to tackle AD from a new angle – by modifying the immune imbalances in the brain using extracellular vesicles from NK cells (NK-EVs). An emerging theme arising from the Basic Science talks at ADRF this year was acknowledgement of a relatively unchartered area of brain immunity in AD and brain inflammation that are potentially targetable. These are the questions we have set our sights on addressing as we commence in vivo animal studies to test safety and efficacy of our NK-EV therapeutic candidates this month.