Building State-of-the-Art Biomedical and Clinical NLP Models with BioMegatron
The Science And Technology Transforming Life With Dementia
Few diagnoses carry the devastating weight of dementia, which heralds loss, decline and inevitable death. The condition is the biggest killer in the UK, and cases are set to soar.
"One in three people born in the UK today will develop dementia in their lifetime," says Richard Oakley, Associate Director of Research and Innovation for Alzheimer's Society. A 2024 report commissioned by Alzheimer's Society found that there are 982,000 people living with dementia in the UK – about one person in 70 – and that the number will rise to 1.4 million by 2040.
This poses an enormous challenge, both for biomedical research and for society. "Dementia is almost unique, in that it spans the health and the social care system in a way that I think no other disease does," says Oakley.
Despite the impact of dementia, progress has been slow. Now, this is beginning to change. For the first time, treatments have emerged that can slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease, a type of dementia accounting for 60 per cent of cases. A better understanding of the mechanisms underlying the different kinds of dementia are reshaping how researchers imagine the condition. Meanwhile, innovations in care – including advanced technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence – are helping to improve quality of life for people with dementia and the people closest to them. "There's never been a more exciting time to be involved in dementia research," says Oakley.
Slowing disease
Since its founding in 1979, Alzheimer's Society has developed into a world-leading funder of dementia research. In 1989, the charity funded research led by neurogeneticist John Hardy into the role of amyloid proteins in Alzheimer's. This led Hardy and his colleague Gerald Higgins to formulate the "amyloid cascade hypothesis", which outlines how the buildup of amyloid plaques in the brain can disrupt its functioning and kill neurons.
Three decades later, treatments are targeting amyloid and removing it from people's brains in early stage Alzheimer's disease. "These drugs have been shown to slow down progression of the disease," says Oakley, although they don't reverse the damage or cure the condition.
These treatments are not currently approved for use in the NHS in the UK, but it is likely that more treatments will be submitted to regulators in the coming years. A study of the Alzheimer's disease drug development pipeline, published in June, found 182 ongoing clinical trials assessing 138 drugs. Some target amyloid, while others are aiming for other targets entirely, including the tau protein, neurotransmitter receptors, and inflammation. "About 30 of these [are] in phase three trials," which is the last step in determining whether a medication is effective as well as safe, says Oakley.
Alzheimer's Society enables technological innovations that can make a huge difference to quality of life for people with dementia. This entails partnering with innovators and entrepreneurs, and encouraging them to work in dementia.
One such company is Recreo VR, which has developed a virtual reality headset specifically for people with dementia, who often cannot tolerate having something covering their faces. But the dementia-friendly features of the Recreo VR headset, such as its lightweight design, means that about 85 per cent could use it, says Richard Oakley, Associate Director of Research and Innovation at Alzheimer's Society. "Using the technology, we could take them back to a place where they lived when they were younger, a family holiday they went on," he says. Dementia patients who had been nonverbal for months often began speaking to carers about their memories. "It's being used in care homes across the country, which is fantastic."
Alongside the search for treatments, Alzheimer's Society supports dementia research in multiple ways. The charity is actively funding over £50m in world leading dementia research, working with more than 400 researchers across the UK. Encouraging early-career researchers to choose dementia as their field of study is a key part of the charity's research strategy. And crucially, it is supporting research that could lead to improved diagnostic methods.
Diagnosis is a major challenge in dementia. While written memory tests are enough to confirm that a person has dementia, additional tests such as PET scans are required to determine the specific type of dementia. "Only 2 per cent of people get that kind of extra, more specific diagnosis," says Oakley. Alzheimer's Society wants many more to get a precise diagnosis promptly.
"The thing that's going to make a very big difference over the next year or two is the introduction of blood tests," says Paresh Malhotra, consultant neurologist and Head of the Division of Neurology at Imperial College London. Such tests would be a cheap and noninvasive way support the diagnosis of dementia.
" There's never been a more exciting time to be involved in dementia research "
Richard Oakley, Alzheimer's SocietyTo enable this, Alzheimer's Society, Alzheimer's Research UK and players of People's Postcode Lottery are funding the Blood Biomarker Challenge. The aim is to gather the information needed to introduce a simple blood marker to test for dementia in the UK healthcare system. Two studies are being supported. One study called READ-OUT, led by Vanessa Raymont at the University of Oxford, is looking at a large panel of potential biomarkers. Meanwhile, Jonathan Schott and Ashvini Keshavan at University College London have launched a project called ADAPT, which focuses on a single protein called p-tau217 that is known to increase in the blood during the development of Alzheimer's disease. The hope is that measuring p-tau217 could support a diagnosis and quickly identify people who need further tests.
We already know the blood tests are reliable, says Malhotra. The new studies will help show how they can be integrated into the healthcare system.
Early and accurate diagnosis is crucial for dementia patients. Research shows that 'disease-modifying treatments' are most effective when given early. Early diagnosis means people can access care and support. It also means people can plan for the future. "You can play a role in determining the care you want at home, or how and when you move to a care home," says Oakley. Such preparations make it less likely that people with dementia will reach a crisis that requires emergency medical intervention.
Family support
Alzheimer's Society also aims to improve the lives of people with dementia and their loved ones. It offers support for families, such as online communities, telephone support lines, and social groups. It promotes wider awareness of dementia in society, enabling people with dementia to live fuller lives (see box).
The overall aim is to halt the march of devastation dementia causes. A true cure remains a distant dream, but even without one, enormous progress is possible. "If you shift back the onset of symptoms and delay how quickly the disease progresses, we could be talking a chronic condition that you manage well," says Oakley.
In a few decades, HIV has gone from a death sentence to something that is treatable, says Malhotra. Alzheimer's treatment could be similarly improved. "There are things that are happening at the moment, particularly around machine learning and AI, that have the potential to transform the field faster than I can imagine," he says.
In a few decades, a dementia diagnosis may not be the beginning of the end but something to manage. "I see a world where Alzheimer's disease is going to be like that," says Oakley. "And Alzheimer's Society is at the forefront of this progress."
Find out more at alzheimers.Org.Uk/newscientistlive
Researchers Discover New Methods For Making Smaller Microchips
By Hannah Robbins
/ Published Sept 12, 2025Johns Hopkins researchers have discovered new materials and a new process that could advance the ever-escalating quest to make smaller, faster, and affordable microchips used across modern electronics—in everything from cellphones to cars, appliances to airplanes.
The team of scientists has discovered how to create circuits that are so small they're invisible to the naked eye using a process that is both precise and economical for manufacturing.
The findings were published Sept. 11 in the journal Nature Chemical Engineering.
"Companies have their roadmaps of where they want to be in 10 to 20 years and beyond," said Michael Tsapatsis, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. "One hurdle has been finding a process for making smaller features in a production line where you irradiate materials quickly and with absolute precision to make the process economical."
Key TakeawaysThe advanced lasers required for imprinting on the minuscule formats already exist, Tsapatsis added, but researchers needed new materials and new processes to accommodate ever smaller microchips.
Microchips are flat pieces of silicon with imprinted circuitries that execute basic functions. During production, manufacturers coat silicon wafers with a radiation-sensitive material to create a very fine coating called a "resist." When a beam of radiation is pointed at the resist, it sparks a chemical reaction that burns details into the wafer, drawing patterns and circuitry.
However, the higher-powered radiation beams that are needed to carve out ever-smaller details on chips do not interact strongly enough with traditional resists.
Image caption: A silicon wafer coated with a radiation-sensitive material
Image credit: Xinpei Zhou
Previously, researchers from Tsapatsis's lab and the Fairbrother Research Group at Johns Hopkins found that resists made of a new class of metal-organics can accommodate that higher-powered radiation process, called "beyond extreme ultraviolet radiation," or B-EUV, which has the potential to make details smaller than the current standard size of 10 nanometers. Metals such as zinc absorb the B-EUV light and generate electrons that cause chemical transformations needed to imprint circuit patterns on an organic material called imidazole.
This research marks one of the first times scientists have been able to deposit these imidazole-based metal-organic resists from solution at silicon-wafer scale, controlling their thickness with nanometer precision. To develop the chemistry needed to coat the silicon wafer with the metal-organic materials, the team combined experiments and models from Johns Hopkins University, East China University of Science and Technology, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, Soochow University in Taiwan, Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. The new methodology, which they call chemical liquid deposition, or CLD, can be precisely engineered and lets researchers quickly explore various combinations of metals and imidazoles.
"By playing with the two components (metal and imidazole), you can change the efficiency of absorbing the light and the chemistry of the following reactions. And that opens us up to creating new metal-organic pairings," Tsapatsis said. "The exciting thing is there are at least 10 different metals that can be used for this chemistry, and hundreds of organics."
The researchers have started experimenting with different combinations to create pairings specifically for B-EUV radiation, which they say will likely be used in manufacturing in the next 10 years.
"Because different wavelengths have different interactions with different elements, a metal that is a loser in one wavelength can be a winner with the other," Tsapatsis said. "Zinc is not very good for extreme ultraviolet radiation, but it's one of the best for the B-EUV."
Museum Of Science And Technology To Unveil Massive Mural Celebrating STEAM Education
SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Museum of Science and Technology, or MOST in Armory Square, will have its "
Mayor Ben Walsh and other local officials are scheduled to speak at the mural dedication.
Stretching along West Jefferson St. Behind the MOST, the mural is designed by Stay Fresh Design artist Tommy Lincoln, is 455 feet long and celebrates the importance of STEAM education.
More than 100 volunteer painters, paint donations from Purcell's Paints and hours of work by Lincoln, brought the mural together, which has been in the works since 2023.
The dedication ceremony kicks off at 10 a.M.
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