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UCL Dementia

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Future Developments

At UCL, we have created one of the world's largest, most productive and highest-impact neuroscience communities. Our Nobel Prize-winning researchers have rewritten our understanding of what causes neurological diseases and how we can diagnose people earlier, and have been developing new treatments for a range of currently incurable conditions. 

UCL Translational Neuroscience

But though we have made huge progress in basic science, not enough of our or others' breakthroughs are making a practical difference to patients. We want to dramatically change the way academia works with industry, and with health and social care providers. We want all new ideas to have a clear, coordinated pathway from the laboratory right through to the clinic. But we can't do this in our current facilities, which are full to capacity and not suitable for highly-collaborative and innovative ways of working. We are developing plans for a new modern biomedical facility, which will support our ambitions to be the most comprehensive, coordinated neuroscience campus anywhere in the world.

The new facility

The facility will support the transformation of the national dementia effort by working openly with all partners, including academia, industry, funders and patient organisations, to break down barriers and drive improvements in diagnosis, care, prevention and treatment for patients and families with dementia. It will take advantage of the co-location of world-class clinical and academic expertise at UCL and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery at Queen Square, and access to an extensive and diverse patient population through our wider clinical network, including close links with Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The facility will include state-of-the-art research laboratories, facilities for early and late clinical trials, and space for collaboration with industry on drug development, so that new treatments are genuinely co-created from inception to delivery.

Dementia Research Institute

At the heart of the campus, UCL is developing plans for a new Dementia Research Institute, for research into the neurodegenerative diseases - those where there is premature death of neurons (Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, Multiple Sclerosis, Motor Neuron Disease). The Dementia Research Institute's research strategy, informed by patient and carer needs, will focus on 

  • fundamental discovery to understand, identify targets and test disease-modifying treatments
  • research into improved care, service configuration and service delivery
  • research into prevention

Funding

UCL and UCLH have committed funding to the capital development, and have launched a major philanthropic campaign to make our plans a reality.