Doctor of Philosophy [Ph.D] [Understanding how age and gender influence the development of AlzheimerÕs disease] From Cardiff University

AlzheimerÕs disease is a progressive, incurable, neurodegenerative disease. It is characterised by increasing memory loss and is associated with very high socioeconomic costs.

Current treatments only affect the symptoms and eventually stop working, thus new therapies are urgently needed. However, to identify new targets for potential drugs, we need to understand more about how the disease is caused.

The most important risk factor for developing AlzheimerÕs disease is age, but we do not understand how increasing age causes this disease. A second important risk factor is being female as about 63% of people with AlzheimerÕs disease are women. Again, the relationship between gender and disease development is poorly understood.