Nordic Life Science 1
82 Leading the Way in Alzheimer’s Research LUND U
NIVERSITY’S famous Alzheimer's researcher, Oskar Hansson, took on a new role in the pharmaceutical industry last year and is today tackling the same challenge from a different angle. T E X T B Y MA L I N O T MA N I I N HIS NEW ROLE at Eli Lilly and Company, Vice President of Neurodegenerative Disease Early Phase Clinical and Imaging Development, Oskar Hansson is responsible for phase 1 and phase 2 trials and the development of new brain imaging techniques for neurodegenerative diseases. This will be his main role and focus now, he says, but he will maintain his old role as Professor of Neurology and Group Leader at Lund University. “I have several very talented employees in Lund who have taken over much of the daily operations,” Hansson says. “I took on this industry role to help accelerate promising therapies into clinical trials and, ultimately, to patients.” He has also stated to Lund University that besides his main reason, to test new treatment strategies for brain diseases more effectively, he wanted a new challenge in life, “be forced to learn a lot of new things in a short space of time and develop as a person in his professional role.” From the complex brain to a simple blood test Oskar Hansson has been interested in neurology ever since medical school. “The brain’s complexity and the unmet needs of patients with dementia drew me to neurology and to research that could change their trajectory,” he says to NLS. So after earning his MD, he completed neurology training and combined clinical practice with research in neurodegeneration. At Lund University, he has built a translational program to advance diagnostics and deepen the understanding of diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. His team has made significant progress too – not least by developing and validating a new blood test for Alzheimer’s disease. Initially, the team focused on developing a diagnostic method based on a sample of spinal fluid. The sample had a very high accuracy, but it needs to be taken at specialist clinics in hospitals. Subsequently new techniques have become available that are more sensitive, making it possible to search the blood for markers that indicate Alzheimer's disease. Thanks to these new techniques, Hansson and his colleagues were able to develop a blood-testing method that measures levels of Plasma Phospho-Tau217. Studies have shown that the test can detect Alzheimer’s-related changes before symptoms are evident and also track progression as the disease advances. Hansson and his colleagues have also demonstrated that this test is as reliable as, NORDIC PROFILES // INTERVIEW