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07 Oct | 2024

The Pasqual Maragall Foundation announces the winning projects of the second edition of the Alzheimer's research grants

The Pasqual Maragall Foundation announces the winning projects of the second call for applications for its research grant programme, the Pasqual Maragall Researchers Programme (PMRP), endowed with 1.6 million euros. This initiative aims to promote innovative projects focused on Alzheimer's and other age-related neurodegenerative diseases.

The PMRP, the most important private grant programme in Spain in this area of research, promotes excellent research led by leading centres throughout the country. In addition, it opens new avenues for addressing Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative pathologies.

Arcadi Navarro, director of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation, highlights the importance of this programme: “The projects awarded in this second edition are outstanding examples of innovation and scientific excellence, and we are convinced that they will significantly contribute to accelerating the development of solutions against dementia. At the Foundation, we firmly believe that research is the only way to understand, treat and eradicate Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases. For this reason, we promote these research grants, which not only recognise the talent and dedication of researchers, but also reaffirm our unwavering commitment to the health and well-being of our society. These initiatives are essential to move towards a future in which dementia is a thing of the past."

 

2 winning projects in the 2023 call

One of the award-winning projects is led by Dr. Silvia De Santis, head of the Translational Imaging Biomarkers group at the Alicante Neurosciences Institute, a joint centre of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) and the Miguel Hernández University (UMH) of Elche. Her research will apply new technology to analyse the state of the immune system through brain scans of participants in the Alfa study. In addition, it seeks to improve the interpretation of previous images using artificial intelligence to increase their resolution.

The second project is led by Dr. Alberto Rábano, director of the Tissue Bank of the Neurological Disease Research Centre (CIEN), and aims to better understand the genetic basis of various brain pathologies. Rábano will work on creating the largest neuropathological database in the Iberian Peninsula, combining detailed genomic data with an updated neuropathological classification. This research, carried out in collaboration with Dr. Victoria Fernández, head of the Ace Alzheimer Center Barcelona's Genomics programme, aims to improve early diagnosis and risk assessment tools.

 

New call for PMRP grants

Following the success of the first two calls, which received a total of more than a hundred applications, the Pasqual Maragall Foundation is now launching the third edition of the PMRP grants, with a budget of 1.6 million euros. Each winning project may receive up to €800,000.

The grants are aimed at individual projects led by a principal investigator or collaborative research between a maximum of three groups, with a coordinator in charge of the consortium. The projects must be led by public or non-profit research institutions in Spain.

For more information about the new call, interested parties can consult the official website of the Pasqual Maragall Foundation: https://fpmaragall.org/ca/pasqual-maragall-researchers-programme/ or send their queries to the email researchgrants@fpmaragall.org