Erik Bakker, Assistant Professor at the department of Biomedical Engineering and Physics at Amsterdam UMC, is part of the international consortium on brain clearance research which has been awarded a five-year $8 million grant by the Leducq Foundation. This funding from the esteemed foundation will support the establishment of a new transatlantic network of excellence to study the role of brain clearance in cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA).

Impact of knowledge on cerebral amyloid angiopathy

CAA is the main cause of hemorrhagic stroke, an important contributor to cognitive decline in older individuals, and the most common vascular comorbidity in Alzheimer’s disease. With the rising aging population, CAA is increasing, and effective disease-modifying interventions are nonexistent. Accumulating evidence is suggesting that defective perivascular brain clearance of waste products (including Amyloid ß) plays an important role in the pathophysiology of CAA. However, there are many fundamental unknowns regarding how the brain clears waste. Unraveling the mechanisms of brain clearance will have major implications for understanding CAA as well as other common dementia disorders.

International consortium

The consortium is expected to officially start January 1st 2024, and includes investigators from research sites across the US and Europe: Dr. Benveniste (Yale University, CT), Drs. Iliff & Shih (University of Washington, WA), Dr. Van Nostrand (University of Rhode Island, RI), Drs. Van Veluw & Greenberg (Massachusetts General Hospital, MA), Dr. Bakker (Amsterdam University Medical Center, the Netherlands), Dr. Carare (University of Southampton, UK), Dr. Lorthois (Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse, France), Dr. Petzold (German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease in Bonn, Germany), and Dr. Van Osch (Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands). The network will be led by North American coordinator Dr. Susanne van Veluw and European coordinator Dr. Matthias van Osch.

Advancing perivascular brain clearance research

The goal of the network is to use a translational approach to study brain waste clearance in CAA. The overarching consortium aims are to establish a data-driven, integrated multi-scale understanding of perivascular brain clearance in health and CAA, translate experimental findings from rodent models to the human brain, and identify relevant driving forces to be tested in future clinical trials to enhance brain clearance.

The Leducq Foundation is an international grant-making organization with a mission to improve human health through international efforts to combat cardiovascular disease and stroke. By forging scientific alliances that transcend national borders and educating young researchers who thrive in an international context, they hope to promote long-term collaborative relationships and to foster innovations in cardiovascular and stroke research, to change the way that patients with cardiovascular and neurovascular disease are diagnosed and treated. For more information, please visit https://www.fondationleducq.org/.