| Photo via Wikimedia Commons
DAVOS, SWITZERLAND — The Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC) has announced that the Marikina Memory and Aging Project (MMAP) is working with the DAC Global Cohort Development Program, a groundbreaking data platform to accelerate the discovery, assessment, and delivery of precision intervention for Alzheimer’s Disease.
The DAC Global Cohort Development (GCD) platform will help drive scientific discovery by providing researchers access to a comprehensive, genuinely international platform populated with brain-related health data from broad and diverse populations. It will support AI and machine learning with organized and aggregated data collected from digital devices through research labs, hospitals, and even people’s smartphones. This data resource will help determine the causes, predispositions, and habits of people who develop Alzheimer’s Disease. It may also inform drug discovery and clinical care more rapidly.
The Marikina Memory and Aging Project looks for dementia prevalence and associated risk factors by collecting clinical and cognitive data from a randomly selected group of Filipino citizens 60 years and older.
“We are excited to be DAC Global Cohort,” said Dr. Jacqueline Dominguez, Philippines Marikina Memory and Aging Project, Executive Director, Institute for Dementia Care Asia and Head of the Memory Center at St. Luke’s Institute for Neurosciences. “Participating in the DAC platform addresses an important research element in our shared goal of defeating Alzheimer’s Disease – the need for data from low-middle-income countries (LMIC).”
“Collaboration and inclusion are essential elements for defeating Alzheimer’s Disease,” said Dr. Rhoda Au, Director of the Global Cohort Development at DAC. “Working in silos with limited representation of participants from across the world is not producing results, either comprehensively enough or fast enough. Past studies have skewed results because of the exclusion of low- and middle- income resourced areas and/or countries. We believe the important work and scientific data from the Marikina Memory and Aging Project, based in the Philippines, will further advance our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease.”
Dr. Jacqueline Dominguez is a neurologist interested in aging and cognitive impairment. She graduated from the St. Louis University College of Medicine and trained in Adult Neurology at the St. Luke’s Institute for Neurosciences. Her interest in dementia made her pursue training in Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. She is a longtime advocate for dementia care in its medical and sociocultural aspects. As an anthropologist, her research interest includes underpinnings of culture and dementia care, one of which is the urban community-based Marikina Memory and Aging Project to develop community and family-based non-pharmacologic interventions in dementia.
The Global Cohort Development combines the best of science – collaboration, creative thinking, and discovery. Supporters are finding this program a cost-effective way to influence the big, new ideas necessary to stem the tide of AD. Other interested researchers with cohorts that share these objectives are encouraged to apply. Because of the synergistic nature of this work, affiliates with limited resources are put on a similar footing with prominent research organizations.
The Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative is a public-private partnership committed to aligning stakeholders with a new vision for our collective global response against the challenges Alzheimer’s presents to patients, caregivers, and healthcare infrastructures. Led by The World Economic Forum (WEF) and The Global CEO Initiative on Alzheimer’s Disease (CEOi) and fueled by a mission of service to the 150 million families and half a billion people inevitably impacted by this disease by 2050, DAC is a collaborative for the benefit of all people, in all places.
–With Jay Domingo/PDM
