Collaborations

Our main collaborative work is with the centres across Europe and Canada that are within the GENFI cohort. We collaborate more widely with other genetic FTD cohorts across the world, particularly the US ALLFTD study, through the FTD Prevention Initiative. Other cohorts in this group include DINAD in Australia, FTDGeNZ in New Zealand and ReDLAT in Latin America.

We are also involved in other consortia including the ENIGMA FTD project and the UNITED consortium.

Clinically, we are part of the European Reference Network for Rare Neurological Diseases (ERN-RND) which aims to improve standards of clinical care for FTD across Europe.

We have also been part of the application to include FTD within the LifeTime Initiative which aims to track, understand and target human cells during the onset and progression of complex diseases.

At the Dementia Research Centre we work with the Brain Behaviour Group led by Jason Warren. Other FTD researchers at UCL we work closely with include Adrian Isaacs at the UK Dementia Research Institute, Tammaryn Lashley at the Queen Square Brain Bank, and Selina Wray at the Department of Neurodegenerative Disease.

We also work with Diego Kaski on the investigation of eye movements and eye tracking in FTD, and with Josh Stott on the development of psychological support for people with FTD.

We collaborate with researchers at UCL investigating allied disorders including PSP and CBS (Huw Morris in the Department of Clinical and Movement Sciences) and MND/ALS (Pietro Fratta, Andrea Malaspina and Katie Sidle in the UCL Queen Square Motor Neuron Disease Centre).

Through Huw Morris, we are involved in a collaborative study in CBS within Europe called the CBS Longitudinal European Assessment Registry (CLEAR) which also involves sites in Stockholm, Barcelona, Tartu, Salerno and Seville.

Our imaging and fluid biomarker team have also been helping with investigations into another atypical parkinsonian disorder multiple system atrophy through a collaboration at UCL with Viorica Chelban and Henry Houlden, as well as the movement disorder Wilson’s disease with Tom Warner and Sam Shribman.

Our imaging research is supported by a close collaboration with the Centre for Medical Image Computing at UCL . We have ongoing projects with Eugenio Iglesias, Andre Altmann, and Danny Alexander and the POND team.

We have been part of large genetic FTD consortia studies including those run by the labs of Rosa Rademakers (International FTLD-TDP GWS consortium), Ekaterina Rogaeva and Matthis Synofzik (GENESIS FTD WES cohort). Currently, we are part of the SOLVE-RD consortium.

Outside of UCL we also have the following ongoing collaborative projects:

• With John van Swieten’s group at Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam
• With Caroline Graff’s group at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm
• With Rosa Rademakers’ group at the Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie in Antwerp
• With Rebekah Ahmed’s group at the University of Sydney 
• With the University of Lund Dementia group
• With Rita Sattler’s group (through our work with Selina Wray at UCL) at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix.

Although most of our collaborative work is with other academic groups, we have some collaborations with companies interested in developing biomarkers and therapies for FTD. These include Alchemab who we are working with to investigate whether there are differences in naturally occurring antibodies between those who develop symptoms very early and those who remain asymptomatic until older age in genetic FTD.