Henrik Zetterberg, Professor of Neurochemistry at the Sahlgrenska Academy, is one of two recipients of “the Alzheimer Fund’s Major Research Prize”. He shares the prize of SEK five million with the other receiver, Assistant Professor Martin Hall Beck at Linköping University.
The prize was established thanks to the donation that the Alzheimer Foundation received last spring in the form of a 1934 Mercedes-Benz 500K Special Roadster. The car was donated to the Alzheimer Foundation and the Swedish Cancer Society and was sold at Mercedes major auction in Stuttgart July 12 this year. The Alzheimer Fund received over SEK 6 million and award the “Alzheimer Fund’s major research prize” to the donor’s honor.
– Dementia is a major public health problem and the need for increased resources for research is urgent. We are therefore delighted that we, thanks to this large donation, are able to distribute the largest amount that we have given to individual researchers, says Liselotte Jansson, the Alzheimer’s Fund’s Secretary General.
Professor Henrik Zetterberg researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy in Gothenburg and has focused on the study of the early signs of Alzheimer’s disease. He and his colleagues have shown that cerebrospinal fluid markers of Alzheimer’s disease works for early diagnosis. These markers are now used worldwide when new drugs are tested.
Henrik Zetterberg about his research:
– Our marker studies in spinal fluid suggest that Alzheimer’s disease starts 10-20 years before you get clear symptoms that indicate that something is not right in the brain. We believe that it is in this time window that the future drugs will be effective. Right now we are studying marker proteins secretion in neuronal cell cultures and seeing how they change if neurons are treated with new drugs against Alzheimer’s disease. We are also working to develop simpler diagnostic tests in blood and new marker proteins, for instance, to study how nerve cell connections are feeling and how the brain cleans cells work. “Alzheimer Fund’s major research prize” is a great encouragement to the entire scientific resaerch team.