This story is part of the Financial Times Seasonal Entreatment for Alzheimer's Enquiry UK, which is raising funds for pioneering research to develop new treatments for dementia. You can support the appeal here

A Reddit user recently posted a photo that stuck with me. The prototype shows a series of crochet squares her mother made after beingness diagnosed with Alzheimer'due south. The earliest ones are neatly stitched, simply as time progresses, her crocheting gets messier and messier. The last squares aren't squares at all, simply tangles of yarn.

The motion picture perfectly captures how Alzheimer's destroys the encephalon. The disease robs people of their ability to function. My family and I have seen offset-manus how devastating this process is, and we're not lonely.

In the UK, Alzheimer's is the only affliction in the height 10 causes of death without any meaningful treatments that becomes more prevalent each year. Unless nosotros find a breakthrough in treatment, its cost — both emotional and financial — volition explode.

Despite this daunting state of affairs, I'thou optimistic that we tin can substantially reduce the impact of Alzheimer's. There are a number of areas where we tin can make pregnant progress.

To offset, we could enable faster progress on all fronts of the Alzheimer's fight by facilitating more information-sharing. Scientists all around the world are working hard to generate new discoveries every day. The data they're collecting in the process are a tremendously powerful tool that can be harnessed improve to understand and reduce the bear on of the affliction.

Much of the research beingness washed is publicly funded. While I recognise there is a lot of money to be fabricated from discovering an effective Alzheimer'due south handling, the benefits the entire field will reap from combining information sets outweigh the competitive advantages that come from keeping data siloed.

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For ane thing, compiling these data might show united states how the disease progresses. When you take a newborn to the doc, you can encounter how their height and weight measure against a typical growth curve. Combining data sets could permit the states to create a like curve for our brain'south health as it ages, helping usa understand how Alzheimer's deviates from normal ageing, and runway how the brain changes. We could likewise come across how these changes may differ based on gender, ethnicity, lifestyle or genetics.

Here's another benefit: by analysing data from big populations, nosotros will probably be able to identify patients at chance earlier. Families and doctors oftentimes wait until memory problems appear before diagnosing someone, simply the illness begins much earlier. A comprehensive wait at brain scans, genetics, medical records and memory testing results would enable doctors to calculate your Alzheimer's "risk score" and identify when you lot should exist tested farther.

Large data sets volition also make it easier to identify new targets for treatment. While almost research to date has focused on two proteins that cause tangles and plaques in the brain, in that location are thousands of potential ways we could target Alzheimer's. I recently invested in a Great britain-based arrangement working on unique approaches to stopping the disease, and there is lots of first-class science being conducted on a small scale. A comprehensive look at the results coming out of these past studies could help spot attractive drug candidates and promising new approaches.

The clinical trial process is some other area that volition benefit from information. It's difficult to detect plenty eligible patients willing to participate. If scientists could predict exactly how many participants are needed to judge the efficacy of a new drug, they could acquit smaller just only as effective studies. This would speed upwards the process and help go new therapies to market place sooner.

Data have already transformed our lives for the improve in and then many ways, from spotting a fraudulent purchase on your credit card to adjusting traffic lights and then that you spend less time sitting in traffic. I can't await to see what new discoveries will exist made in the fight confronting Alzheimer'due south thanks to the power of data.

The author is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

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Letter in response to this commodity:

Take affliction inquiry data out of the silos / From Marking Medish, Washington, DC, United states

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