Shortlisted Dementia Frontiers Fund teams

Dementia Frontiers Fund

The Dementia Frontiers Fund launched in October 2025 and attracted 132 expressions of interest from 29 countries.

Following a competitive selection process, 12 teams received seed funding to develop full proposals. In July 2026, five of these teams were awarded grants of up to £1.5 million over two years. Below, you can learn more about the 12 seed-funded teams.

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Question 1: Can we better predict and stage disease progression in dementia?

Transnational Platform to Predict Absolute Risk of Cognitive Impairment

Led by Professor Clifford Jack Jr. and Professor Ronald Petersen (Mayo Clinic)

Together with Professor Beverly Gwen Windham (University of Mississippi), Professor Christopher Rowe (University of Melbourne) and Professor Arcadi Navarro (Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center)

This team aims to enrich and extend analyses across 4 major longitudinal and diverse cohorts to create a uniquely rich data set that will aid in developing next-generation prediction models. This proposal directly addresses the need for multi-marker prediction tools and aims to produce a generalisable absolute/lifetime risk score for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) to enable earlier detection and thus earlier intervention of the disease.

Decoding the Biological Terrain of Alzheimer’s Progression: Integrating Co-Pathology, Omics, and Systemic Drivers

Led by Professor Duygu Tosun (University of California San Francisco) and Dr Oliver Robinson (Imperial College London)

Together with Dr Carlos Cruchaga (Washington University), Dr Nicholas Ashton (Banner Health), Dr Dimitrios Kapogiannis (NIA/NIH), Dr Nikolaos Mellios (Circular Genomics), Dr Marc Suárez-Calvet (Barcelonaβeta Brain Research Center), Professor Lefkos Middleton (Imperial College London) and Associate Professor Gyungah R. Jun (Boston University)

This proposal will focus on the critical amyloid-to-tau interval that is closely tied to clinical decline to determine the accelerants and retardants of symptom onset. This proposal takes a targeted approach through leveraging several longitudinal datasets with incorporated co-pathologies to address specific mechanistic questions that could reveal early predictors of symptom onset and guide preventative interventions.

Scalable multimodal AI system for early detection and staging of cognitive impairment

Led by Associate Professor Vijaya B. Kolachalama and Professor Rhoda Au (Boston University)

Together with Dr Gabrielle Britton (Florida State University), Professor Maw Pin Tan (University of Malaysia), Professor Zul Merali and Dr Olivera Nesic-Taylor (The Aga Khan University), Dr Jinying Chen, Dr Philip Hwang, Associate Professor Sherral Devine, Dr Alvin Ang, Associate Professor Jesse Mez and Dr Jon Cherry (Boston University), Professor Audrey Gabelle (Montpellier University) and Professor Zoe Kourtzi (University of Cambridge)

This team will develop and release open-source and scalable AI pipelines that can rapidly harmonize disparate dementia datasets from LMICs and the United States. Concrete deliverables include: a more globally diverse integrated dementia resource; validated tools for earlier detection; frameworks for clinical trials with reduced geographic and income bias; and predictive models for long-term patient and family outcomes.

Question 2: Why are some high-risk populations resilient to dementia?

Elucidating the synaptic basis of cognitive resilience to Alzheimer’s disease in humans

Led by Dr Patricio Opazo (University of Edinburgh)

Together with Dr Johanna Jackson (Imperial College London), Dr Natalie Connor-Robson (Cardiff University), Dr Claire Durrant, Dr Kathryn Bowles and Dr Owen Dando (University of Edinburgh).

This team aims to identify the synaptic basis of cognitive resilience to Alzheimer's disease in humans through a multi-modal approach, combining molecular profiling of synapses from resilient individuals with target validation in human neurons. This proposal has the potential to inform new therapeutic strategies that harness the brain’s intrinsic ability to preserve synaptic integrity and sustain cognitive function.

A Roadmap to Alzheimer’s Resilience: Defining, testing and shifting resilience across people and cells

Led by Professor Zameel Cader (University of Oxford) and Professor Tony Wyss-Coray (Stanford University)

Together with Professor Sir Simon Lovestone (Johnson&Johnson), Professor Vanessa Raymont, Associate Professor Alejo Holgado Nevado and Professor Richard Wade-Martins (University of Oxford), Professor Dag Aarsland, Professor Richard Siow, Professor Sandrine Thuret and Dr Cristina Legido-Quigley (King’s College London), Professor Caleb Webber (Cardiff University) and Professor JoonKyung Seong (University of Korea)

EMERALD: Epigenomic Mechanisms of Extreme Resilience and APOE Liability in Dementia

Led by Dr Sarah Marzi (King's College London), Associate Professor Henne Holstege (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) and Dr Alexi Nott (Imperial College London)

This proposal will characterise cell-type-specific epigenetic signatures of cognitive resilience, contributing a foundational resource for therapeutic target discovery as part of the human atlas of cognitive resilience within the Brain Resilience Hub. The team will leverage the 100-plus study of Dutch centenarians, a uniquely resilient population, and integrate in vivo, pre-mortem, and post-mortem gene regulatory and omics data to produce a multidimensional pipeline to discover potential resilience interventions.

Autoantibody-mediated cognitive resilience in Alzheimer’s disease

Led by Associate Professor Lahiru Handunnetthi (University of Oxford)

Together with Associate Professor Emma Mead and Associate Professor Roman Fischer (University of Oxford)

This team aims to uncover how autoantibodies contribute to cognitive resilience. They will combine human stem cell-derived neuronal models with proteomics to identify and characterise autoantibodies and their neuronal targets directly from patient samples. The team highlights autoantibodies as promising biomarkers of resilience and emphasises the strong translational potential of identifying protective antibody targets. This work could open new avenues for immune-based strategies to promote cognitive resilience.

Leveraging sex biology and endocrine aging to identify novel contributors of resilience of neurodegeneration and dementia

Led by Associate Professor Jennifer Rabin (Sunnybrook Research Institute, University of Toronto)

Together with Professor Liisa Galea, Madeline Wood Alexander, Professor Wendy Wolfman, Dr Marie Christakis, Dr Janet Bodley, Professor Kamil Uludag, Associate Professor Maged Goubran, Dr Julie Ottoy, Dr Sandra Black, Professor Mario Masellis, Professor Neil Vasdev, Professor Isabelle Boileau, Associate Professor Andrew Lim, Associate Professor Daniel Felsky, Dr Thomas Karikari, Dr Peter Zhukovsky, Associate Professor Shannon Dunn, Dr Amy Kirkham, Associate Professor Kaitlin Casaletto, Associate Professor Bryan Coburn (University of Toronto)

This proposal will focus on cognitive resilience through a sex-informed, endocrine-focused lens, investigating how mid-life hormonal changes may influence resilience in later life. By integrating deep multimodal phenotyping and leveraging existing biomarker and ageing-study infrastructure, the proposal aims to generate valuable mechanistic insights into an understudied area in dementia research.

Question 3: What are the relative contributions of different brain pathologies to the development of dementia?

Dissecting dementia co-pathologies: genetic and molecular determinants

Led by Dr Petroula Proitsi (Queen Mary University London), Dr Cristina Legido-Quigley (King’s College London) and Dr Laura Winchester (University of Oxford)

Together with Dr Yue Liu and Professor Charles Marshall (Queen Mary University London), Professor Claire Troakes (King’s College London), Associate Professor Becky Carlyle (University of Oxford), Dr Nicholas Ashton (Banner Health), Professor Kendall Van Keuren-Jensen (The Translational Genomics Research Institute) and Associate Professor Michelle Lupton (QIMR Berghofer).

This team aims to define the genetic and molecular signatures associated with dementia co-pathologies. To achieve this, they will leverage multiple post-mortem cohorts, some of which have paired antemortem blood samples and build a large-scale integrated database. By developing a co-pathology stratification framework, this work has the potential to improve patient stratification, inform multi-target therapeutic strategies, and ultimately increase the likelihood of clinical success.

Understanding co-pathologies in Alzheimer’s disease to enable improved molecular diagnosis and precision therapies

Led by Professor Pietro Fratta and Professor Selina Wray (University College London)

Together with Associate Professor Zane Jaunmuktane, Professor Jonathan Schott and Professor Sonia Gandhi (University College London), Professor William McEwan (University of Cambridge), Professor Leonard Petrucelli and Professor Sarosh Irani (Mayo Clinic)

Mapping genomic hotspots of neuronal and glial somatic mutations in Alzheimer's disease at single-molecule resolution

Led by Dr Sourena Soheili-Nezhad (Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour), Professor Floris Foijer (European Institute for the Biology of Ageing) and Professor Christo Prokakis (University College London)

Together with Professor Christian Gilissen (Radboud University Medical Center), and Dr Ryoji Amamoto (Harvard Medical School)

Multi-modal nanoscopic and molecular mapping and modelling of human neurodegenerative disease progression

Led by Dr Annelies Quaegebeur (University of Cambridge)

Together with Professor Sir David Klenerman and Associate Professor Jo Jones (University of Cambridge), and Professor Sonia Gandhi (University College London)

This team aims to establish a mechanistic multi-modal framework for tracking disease progression through advanced microscopy of protein aggregates, synapses and molecular signatures. The resulting models could provide a biological foundation for a clinically interpretable framework to improve the understanding of disease heterogeneity and enabling more precise alignment between underlying pathology and therapeutic strategies.

Shortlisted Dementia Frontiers Fund teams

Question 1: Can we better predict and stage disease progression in dementia?​

Transnational Platform to Predict Absolute Risk of Cognitive Impairment

Decoding the Biological Terrain of Alzheimer’s Progression: Integrating Co-Pathology, Omics, and Systemic Drivers​

Scalable multimodal AI system for early detection and staging of cognitive impairment​

Question 2: Why are some high-risk populations resilient to dementia?

Elucidating the synaptic basis of cognitive resilience to Alzheimer’s disease in humans​

A Roadmap to Alzheimer’s Resilience: Defining, testing and shifting resilience across people and cells​

EMERALD: Epigenomic Mechanisms of Extreme Resilience and APOE Liability in Dementia​

Autoantibody-mediated cognitive resilience in Alzheimer’s disease​

Leveraging sex biology and endocrine aging to identify novel contributors of resilience of neurodegeneration and dementia​

Question 3: What are the relative contributions of different brain pathologies to the development of dementia?​

Dissecting dementia co-pathologies: genetic and molecular determinants ​

Understanding co-pathologies in Alzheimer’s disease to enable improved molecular diagnosis and precision therapies​

Mapping genomic hotspots of neuronal and glial somatic mutations in Alzheimer's disease at single-molecule resolution ​

Multi-modal nanoscopic and molecular mapping and modelling of human neurodegenerative disease progression​