We are writing to you with the latest news from the AMYPAD project.

Hope this newsletter finds you well in strange times and that everyone is able to stay healthy and motivated despite the enormous constraints of working at home, lack of personal contact and frustration over stalled projects like AMYPAD. We do see light at the end of the tunnel though!

Now that infection rates are dropping rapidly across Europe and measures are being relaxed, hospitals in many countries are starting to resume regular patient care. More importantly, various centers have restarted recruiting and scanning subjects for the DPMS and even PNHS, which is exciting news. I hope this optimism can be maintained and infection risk keep low. AMYPAD was in such a good flow before the lockdown and it would be a great reward to see a recovery of the inclusion rates before the summer holidays. The DPMS needs less than 200 patients to complete and an amendment is being rolled out to allow shorter follow-up, effectively prolonging the inclusion window.

Also for the PNHS, amendments are rolled out to allow follow-up in former LCS subjects now that EPAD is coming to a close. This will allow us to collect the crucial follow-up information and contact subjects for follow-up scans. We are examining the financial feasibility to allow this to happen, assuming that IMI will look favorably at a no-cost extension to mitigate the damage done by the COVID pandemic. To integrate data from the various parent cohorts in the PNHS, the WP4 team has been working intensively with the Aridhia team to prepare merging of data. Detailed work is being performed to harmonize data from EPAD, EMIF, ALFA, FACEHBI and other parent cohorts into a common database.

Meanwhile, significant progress also being made by the WP2 team in terms of scan quantification procedures and image processing software. These will facilitate tracer-independent centiloid scaling (in collaboration with South-Korean collaborators) and comprehensive amyloid PET analysis pipelines, important legacies of AMYPAD.

Taken together, the pause enforced upon us by the COVID pandemic has been used in a constructive manner to prepare ourselves for a renaissance in which we will reappear invigorated and better prepared for the final period of our project. With your help we will prevail.

Stay well and remain connected!

This electronic newsletter will be published quarterly and be accessible via the AMYPAD website (www.amypad.eu). In this issue, you will find a spotlight on WP2, interviews with two AMYPAD collaborators, the highlighted achievements over the past quarter as well as AMYPAD’s participation in relevant events. You can download the newsletter here.