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DPUK Research Reflections

It's been ten years since Dementias Platform UK first launched back in the autumn of 2014. We hear from some of those who were there when it all started as they give their assessment of what's been accomplished.

Professor Ronan Lyons addressing the audience at DPUK's launch event at the Royal Society in 2014

Professor John’O Brien, Neuroimmunology Theme Lead, University of Cambridge Department of Clinical Neurosciences

It is amazing to think DPUK is marking its 10th Anniversary. From some early innovative concepts, it has shown itself to be a formidable force in helping bring the dementia community together, both geographically and in terms of encouraging interdisciplinary working. It has become a key part of dementia in the UK and is now permanently etched into the Dementia research landscape.

The data portal offers world-class infrastructure for secure data sharing, the experimental medicine incubator facilitates and stimulates new cutting-edge research and the clinical trials delivery framework provides a structure which helps identify and stratify participants for efficient study delivery.

This makes the UK a more attractive place for all dementia studies, whether commercial or non-commercial, to be done here. I think the partnership approach, whether with industry or between academic institutions, is very strong and a key part of the success of DPUK.

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Ronan Lyons OBE, Clinical Professor of Public Health, University of Swansea

When DPUK started out in 2014 it aimed to be the world’s leading facility to integrate multiple cohorts to provide a comprehensive epidemiological research platform for dementia, identify and characterise dementia related outcomes more accurately and to develop bio-informatics methods to support experimental medicine.

Prof Ronan

The DPUK Data Portal has been tremendously successful, now providing global access to more than 60 datasets and supporting some 300 projects. I am immensely proud of the team’s willingness to listen to the needs of the research community, develop expert community networks, innovate and transition to a multi-modal data analysis environment which now provides access to large and growing volumes of harmonised neuroimaging and genomics data, supporting a much broader range of research scientists.

We also lead the world in developments on robust and acceptable solutions to federated analysis, the next step in integrating data access to global research data collections.