an initiative to create a genetic map<\/a> of as many UAE citizens as possible to advance preventive health care. It has currently gathered the DNA of more than 900,000 citizens and the Department of Health will send text messages to people thought to be eligible for the trials to undergo screening.<\/p>\nM42\u2019s Insights Research Organisation and Solutions (IROS) division is to lead the trials. David Kavanagh, interim general manager of IROS, said the trial reflected \u201ca decade of genomic investment” in the UAE. \u201cThe Emirati Genome Programme was built to improve health outcomes, and today we are translating that data into real-world clinical research,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Dr David Bearss, president and chief executive of Halia Therapeutics, said use of the programme and M42\u2019s assistance in the project would enable \u201ca prevention-focused clinical trial\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not waiting for disease to appear. We are acting at the moment when intervention can matter most, and the Emirati Genome Programme gives us a population-scale platform to do so,\u201d he said. \u201cThat is why we have established a presence in Abu Dhabi, and we are excited to show the world what the future can look like when we use these tools to focus on early intervention in high-risk populations.\u201d<\/p>\n
About a quarter of people have a single copy of the APOE4 gene variant, having inherited it from one of their parents. Those individuals are at least twice as likely as the average person to develop the disease, while those with two copies of APOE4 make up about two per cent of the population and are even more likely to have the condition.<\/p>\n
In recent years, the first treatments thought to slow the progression of Alzheimer\u2019s have been released. Those drugs work by removing deposits in the brain of a protein called amyloid, but such deposits have not been proven to cause the disease and the benefits of the drugs appear to have been modest. That has led some health regulators to recommend against further funding. <\/p>\n
The therapy to be tested in the coming trials is called HT-4253 and it works in a different way, inhibiting a gene called LRRK2. In doing so it is thought to prevent the inflammation of nerve cells and stop the build-up of the amyloid protein.<\/p>\n
Rob Howard, professor of old-age psychiatry at University College London, told The National that the change in focus was \u201cexciting\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is welcomed, because it\u2019s an alternative to the amyloid idea. It represents diversity in Alzheimer\u2019s research,\u201d he said. \u201cToo much drug development has been focused on trying to remove or reduce amyloid. The drugs that remove amyloid don\u2019t seem to make very much difference to dementia, although they clear out the amyloid \u2026 we really need to see a different class of drugs being tried.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added that it \u201cmakes sense\u201d to provide therapies to people before they reach old age, because it could mean they have \u201chopefully many years of useful life ahead of them\u201d. But he cautioned that there was no guarantee the drug would generate positive results.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil we see the data from the trials, we shouldn\u2019t speculate,\u201d Prof Howard said. \u201cIt\u2019s possible they will do nothing at all. The field is littered with drugs that failed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, Halia Therapeutics, which is based in Utah, announced it had completed early-stage clinical trials of HT-4253 in Australia. Prof Paul Morgan, a group leader at the Dementia Research Institute at Cardiff University, told The National that while APOE4 is a “useful indicator of increased risk\u201d of developing Alzheimer\u2019s, it is not definitive. <\/p>\n
He added that it was valuable to develop ways to identify those at risk before symptoms developed, because \u201conce dead, brain cells don\u2019t come back\u201d.<\/p>\n
Dr Noura Al Ghaithi, undersecretary at the Department of Health, said in a statement that the genome programme showed that the UAE wanted to use data to create a “more precise, proactive and prevention-focused healthcare system\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy integrating genomic data into clinical research, in collaboration with our local and international partners, we are advancing a model of personalised health care that enables earlier risk detection, accelerates diagnosis and supports the development of more targeted and effective preventive and therapeutic interventions tailored to each individual\u2019s genetic profile,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Until now, much genetic research has focused on western countries, so the UAE’s programme provides much-needed information about a previously under-researched population. <\/p>\n
The Middle East has one of the fastest-ageing populations in the world, owing to falling birth rates and people living longer. More than 57 million people around the world have dementia, a study found, with the number of people with dementia or Alzheimer’s expected to reach 153 million by 2050. Alzheimer\u2019s causes more than 60 per cent of dementia cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The genetic data of almost one million Emiratis is to be used to help in trials of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672896,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,5438,5141,10196,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-672895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-standard","tag-story","tag-uae-desk-team","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=672895"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672895\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}