RESEARCH

Our research focuses on investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying the connection between Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and diabetes. The prevalence of AD increases as the world population ages. In parallel, the prevalence of type-2 diabetes and obesity is also increasing at alarming rates, largely due to poor lifestyle habits. Significantly, clinical/epidemiological studies have linked AD to diabetes, with each disease increasing the risk of developing the other. Furthermore, diabetic patients are significantly more likely to develop cognitive deterioration, with dementia twice as frequent in diabetics than in normal subjects.

 

How diabetes and obesity favor the development of dementia remains unclear. This is an intriguing question that currently attracts considerable interest in both AD and diabetes/obesity fields. My group has significantly contributed to the elucidation of the initial molecular connections between AD and diabetes.

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We employ a multidisciplinary approach, combining in vitro and in vivo experiments in different animal models of disease, notably a novel non-human primate (NHP) model of AD we recently developed and initially characterized.