Alzheimer’s Disease: Addressing a Twenty-First Century Plague (public talk)

Neurodegenerative disorders, particularly Alzheimer’s disease, represent one of the greatest challenges to the social fabric and health care systems of much of the modern world. The predominant reason for the rapidly increasing prevalence of these conditions is the increase in longevity that has resulted from the dramatic advances in health, hygiene and medicine that have taken place over the last century. The most common neurodegenerative disorders are associated with the aberrant folding and subsequent aggregation within the brain of our own protein molecules, and there are at present no cures or even highly effective treatments for this class of disease. This talk will discuss recent advances in our knowledge of the underlying molecular nature of these disorders unravelled through biophysical and other methods, and how this knowledge is beginning to suggest new and rational therapeutic strategies by which to combat their onset and progression.