Western dean leads fight against brain disease
By Jonathan Sher, The London Free Press
Dr. Michael Strong. (QMI Agency file photo)
A tidal wave of degenerative brain disease has struck our aging population but the best hope for the vulnerable may be efforts led by the dean at Western’s medical school.
Dr. Michael Strong of the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry is the point person for neurologists Ontario-wide who are building a toolkit of sorts they believe will help them predict who will be afflicted and how to detect disease sooner for more effective treatment of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, frontotemporal lobar degeneration and vascular cognitive impairment.
“The potential is huge,” Strong said.
Researchers and clinicians have traditionally worked in silos but Strong’s group is changing that, creating an accessible database for them that will track patients with the diseases and test results including MRIs, PET scans, eye-tracking, cognitive testing and blood and gait analysis.
They’ve already enrolled 100 patients with the goal of signing up 600 by the fall. If all goes as planned, the database will lead to better results for patients in four or five years, Strong said.
There’s no time to waste: the baby boom generation is already feeling the deluge of age-related degenerative brain disease.
“Our clinics are swamped,” Strong said. “We’re already starting to see the tidal wave come though.”
The collaborative effort of more than 50 investigators across Ontario will help researchers and clinicians broaden their knowledge in two key ways that until now have been too often overlooked:
- They’ll be able to more readily see common and differing traits among the different diseases.
- They’ll gain a better sense of different variations within each disease.
“It’s the most exciting (work) I’ve ever done,” said Donald Stuss, president and scientific director of the Ontario Brain Institute that is investing $19 million in the initiative, with another $9.5 million coming from other partners.
Patients will benefit because advocacy groups, clinicians and Big Pharma will share access to the information.
“Patient needs are placed at the centre of the cutting-edge work being done, and through the early engagement of industry partners, the commercialization of research outcomes becomes a priority as opposed to an afterthought,” Stuss said.
Called the Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative’s Integrated Discovery Program, it will involve investigators in London, Hamilton, Kingston, Ottawa and Toronto.
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BRAIN DISORDERS
- 285,000 Ontarians suffer from a neurodegenerative disorder such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and ALS.
- Patients lose memory and cognitive abilities with the loss of brain cells or brain cell function.
- Our aging population is causing a surge in the diseases that will continue to grow through 2020.
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