A new international partnership between Bar-Ilan University and Hapvida NotreDame Intermédica (HNDI) in Brazil will facilitate innovative research on genetic and phenotypic factors that affect maternal health, including age-related neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Alzheimer's disease accounts for 60% to 70% of all cases of dementia in the world, according to the World Health Organization. By 2050 the disease is expected to affect up to 139 million people worldwide.
In 2020, a study published in the scientific journal Neurology showed that middle-aged women are almost twofold more likely to have the disease, compared to men. Another study, conducted by researchers from Massachusetts General Brigham and Vanderbilt and Stanford Universities found that having a mother with Alzheimer's may increase the risk of developing the disease. Finally, earlier studies have shown that women who had pregnancy with a Down syndrome fetus are fivefold more likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease later in life. These examples are but a few that exemplify the importance of identifying the root causes for factors that affect maternal health.
The team, led by Prof. Eitan Okun, Head of the Paul Feder Laboratory for Alzheimer's Disease Research at Bar-Ilan’s Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences and Gonda (Goldschmied) Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, will investigate the maternal mechanisms that may contribute to the development of these conditions, identifying genetic markers and phenotypic patterns that underly the causes of the diseases. The results of this research can also help create preventive or therapeutic strategies.
According to Prof. Okun, “the collaboration between the Paul Feder Laboratory and Hapvida is a unique opportunity to uncover the underlying causes of maternal diseases that cannot be discovered otherwise. This is expected to directly benefit women’s health in Brazil and around the world.” Okun and his team, specializing in neurodegenerative diseases, will use information from over 13,000 patients that received treatments at Hapvida-related medical institutions to conduct the research.
“This alliance strengthens Hapvida's innovation capacity, expanding the reach of its population health research and positioning the company at the forefront of global medical research,” says Rodrigo Sardenberg, the company's national medical research manager, who highlights that the experience of the team of researchers from Israel is a fundamental differentiator for the success of the research. “This allows for a comprehensive approach that integrates advances in neuroscience, genetics and epidemiology,” he assesses.