What is your current role on AMYPAD?

I am working on the AMYPAD project within the science and technology teams at IXICO, providing scientific and technical support across both the AMYPAD Diagnostic and Management Study (DPMS) and Prognostic and Natural History Study (PNHS). A main focus in the most recent weeks has been a performance upgrade to the TrialTracker system that hosts the imaging data of both studies, and eCRF data for the DPMS. This included configuration to allow upload of non-EPAD datasets for the PNHS, and additional prompts in the diagnosis section of the eCRFs for the DPMS to help improve the quality of the data being collected. More generally, I work with our data management team to ensure we are sending appropriate PET DICOM data regularly to GE Healthcare for their SUVR analysis on the DPMS, and support the ongoing SUVR analysis on the PNHS, including discussions with the WP2 team.

What is your overall vision?

Overall, my vision is to contribute to improved healthcare in neurodegenerative diseases. For Alzheimer’s disease, I believe the AMYPAD project can play a key role, both in terms of improving the management of patients with suspected dementia, and providing good quality data to improve our understanding of the natural progression of the disease. I would like to see this translated into improvements in the way amyloid-PET imaging is used in clinical trials, either to recruit the optimum patient population for a novel therapy, or to monitor effects of an amyloid-targeted approach. As with any project of this size, there are sure to be other important learnings along the way as well!

What do you find most challenging about the project?

I think a key challenge will be in ensuring harmonisation of data across centres. There is a great collaborative effort across all partners on the project, and I look forward to working with the teams to ensure its success.