Dementias Platform UK

30/06/2026

DPUK is delighted to announce that Prof Vanessa Raymont has taken over as Director. She replaces Prof John Gallacher who is stepping down after more than 10 years in the role. She will be shaping DPUK's future at an exciting time in dementia research.

09/06/2026

Our research study is part of the . With funding from the People's Postcode Lottery we can transform the scale and accuracy of dementia. Their funding is going to make a difference by bringing a simple blood test to the NHS. The numbers are huge...and early intervention with such a test could help manage dementia better, even resulting in people not getting the disease at all. https://zurl.co/cjSzK

Thanks to Alzheimer's Society Alzheimer's Research UK

19/05/2026

Our FAST Brain Health Study has just announced the addition of 11 new sites https://zurl.co/M378G .
5 of these are in Scotland. The expansion is making it easier for people to be part of research into brain health, ageing, and dementia risk. As a result, FAST is reaching a far wider part of the UK population.
Read more https://zurl.co/zyiDM including how you too couldbe part of this study.

07/05/2026

Help us to understand public and patient views about new blood tests for dementia and other memory problems. Complete our online survey and tell us your attitude to taking such a test as well as the factors influencing a decision.
Take the test: https://zurl.co/3vSxJ

University of Cambridge New blood tests could transform how dementia is diagnosed — making it faster, simpler, and more accessible. We want to understand how people feel about these tests and what matters when deciding whether to take one. TAKE PART IN THE SURVEY! About this project This survey is...

16/04/2026

Our READ-OUT study is helping to shape how the NHS can use blood biomarkers to increase the number of people getting an accurate dementia diagnosis. It's part of the Blood Biomarker Challenge, a multi-million pound initiative led by Alzheimer’s Society, Alzheimer’s Research UK.

13/03/2026

It's great to have Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust starting to recruit participants in our -OUT study - helping to bring effective early diagnosis of dementia to more people in the NHS 🔗READ MORE - https://zurl.co/KslRc

A groundbreaking trial exploring the potential of blood tests to diagnose...

02/02/2026

Here's a really useful guide to dementia published in the Daily Mail on Saturday. It is in conjunction with the Alzheimer's Society.

Read Prof Vanessa Raymont's excellent guide to early signs of dementia which are so important to getting an early diagnosis and managing the disease. She is one of our leading scientists at DPUK. Her READ-OUT programme is trying to find the most effective tests the NHS can adopt to make it easier for everyone to get a diagnosis.
https://zurl.co/BWukH

Gill Livingston, a professor of psychiatry of older people at University College London says: 'Alcohol is a toxin that can affect memory and raise your dementia risk.'

22/01/2026

The latest biomarker study to translate promising studies into real-world validated tests to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease was announced this week. It aims to help identify blood or digital tests that could help predict the presence of amyloid plaques or tau tangles in the brain, which are the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease.

It is hoped that a simple finger-prick test could be enough to diagnose Alzheimer’s with sufficient accuracy for clinicians to use routinely. The study, led in the UK by Life Arc will involve 1,000 volunteers aged over 60 in the UK, US and Canada.

The new study reflects the growing excitement about the use of blood biomarkers in diagnosis to achieve diagnosis at scale and reduce the cost and time taken for patient testing.

Professor Vanessa Raymont is leading Dementia Platform UK’s own blood biomarker study, READ-OUT. She welcomes the latest new trial.

“This study is an exciting opportunity for the comparison of very accessible markers with more validated markers such as PET imaging. This will definitely help us understand whether the blood biomarkers that look promising really do measure aspects of Alzheimer's disease in real world populations. It will add vital data alongside the Blood Biomarker Challenge funded READ-OUT study, which is looking at these, plus additional blood biomarkers in a UK memory clinic population.”

READ-OUT also focuses on easy-to-do tests, but for a range of dementias including Alzheimer’s, vascular, dementia with Lewy bodies, and frontotemporal dementia. It involves 3,200 participants as part of the Blood Biomarker Challenge funded through the Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK including funding from players of the People’s Postcode Lottery. It will assess the best ways of obtaining samples and could lead to the health service using a number of tests taken from a blood sample alongside digital tests of cognition.
https://zurl.co/FvTvg

An international trial involving 1,000 volunteers will aim to detect biomarkers associated with the condition.

20/01/2026

Help DPUK's -Cog study? It's testing 2 treatments for & in people with memory problems caused by damaged blood vessels in the . Access the survey at , the PPIE site https://zurl.co/17YET. Anyone can complete it.