King's College London

Funded through a £2.9m grant from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Brain Health will investigate three main areas, using cutting edge technology to solve major challenges in the field of brain health and dementia research in diagnosis, care, and treatment. Brain scanning, blood sampling, computerised testing and technology will be used to create a more intelligent way of diagnosing dementia in the early stages of the condition.

The launch event saw talks from speakers across the research space, including from Professor Dag Aarsland, Professor Clive Ballard, Professor Richard Trembath, Professor Allan Young, Professor Sebastian Ourselin and Dr Hannah Bennett. The keynote by Christian Angermayer, founder of Atai Life Science and Apeiron Investment Group, was chaired by Dr Richard Siow, Director of Ageing Research at King's (ARK).

Alongside this several panel discussions were held on innovation, entrepreneurship, and the expectations of the centre. There were stalls from iLoF, SleepUp, Oxford Brain Diagnostics, Milbotix, Muhdo Health, PROTECT (University of Exeter), and Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing at King’s IoPPN.

The Centre is hosted by the South London and Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Foundation Trust, and led by Prof Dag Aarsland, Director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, School of Academic Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience and lead consultant for the SLaM Remote Brain Health Clinic, together with Prof Clive Ballard at University of Exeter Medical School.

The HRC will support new technologies to reduce the impact of dementia on society. The HRC team led by Professor Dag Aarsland, Director of the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, and Professor Clive Ballard at University of Exeter. They are joined by experts from variety of academic and clinical research backgrounds, national bodies such as NICE and MHRA as well as a small and multinational companies and non-profit organisations such as Association of British HealthTech Industries and the Health Innovation Network South London.

For more information please visit the HRC webpages.