The Anne & Allan Bank Centre for Clinical Trials Research Unit (CCRU) at Baycrest was created to respond to a growing need to explore and test new therapies to prevent, detect, and treat dementia. Our clinical trials, led by an experienced team of world-renown scientists, test promising experimental medications and non-medication interventions that are hoping to treat, and prevent dementia. It’s another frontier in the fight for healthy aging.
The research team often has more than a dozen ongoing trials at a time, the most for Alzheimer’s Disease in Canada.
Here’s a sample of what our scientists are exploring:
- We participated as a site in an international study that tested how plaque build-up in the brain can be eliminated. The drug has gone for FDA approval.
- A drug administered by IV infusion attacks inflammation. It has the potential to alter the course of Alzheimer’s Disease by reducing brain inflammation.
- Another option for reducing brain inflammation is easy to inject and might reverse the neural loss caused by Alzheimer’s.
- We’re testing a breakthrough treatment to remove the tau protein that many believe is the key approach to stop Alzheimer Disease. This is an exciting treatment that must be administered every three months directly into the spinal fluid by lumbar puncture.
- Another study looks at the benefits of a new intravenous drug for Alzheimer sufferers that also targets abnormal proteins. The drug was successful in one previous study.
- A drug self-administered by subcutaneous injection every few weeks is being tested for its ability to attack plaque.
- Our team is taking part in international trials to test immune therapies to prevent Alzheimer’s. It’s thought that deficits in the immune system may contribute to Alzheimer’s and this new drug aims to correct those deficits.
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