A new approach to dementia research

You may not have heard of the BioHermes study, but you can’t help but have seen the press coverage around blood tests for dementia that made the headlines earlier this year. BioHermes was the major study of these new blood tests, and has been called one of the most important dementia research projects of recent years. The resulting Bio-Hermes-001 dataset is incredibly important. Put simply, it’s the most comprehensive set of dementia biomarker data we have.

The data belongs to the Global Alzheimer’s Platform Foundation  or GAP for short. GAP is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to accelerating the delivery of innovative therapies to those living with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

In February 2024, the Brain Health ARC, supported by Race Against Dementia, teamed up with GAP to launch a data challenge competition for proposals from researchers to access the Bio-Hermes-001 dataset.

The challenge was designed by the Brain Health ARC in response to the perception that traditional research moves slowly, while dementia itself progresses quickly.

By working in partnership with GAP and the dementia research community we have completed a portfolio of high quality, impactful research in just a matter of months. That timeline is extraordinary in Alzheimer’s research, where studies and clinical trials typically take years. Achieving this has proven that researchers are able to take an agile approach and has demonstrated that urgency is possible. I think that what we have shown too is that with collaboration, support, and a little hard work we can do things differently and change things for the better.

I was delighted when GAP President, John Dwyer, said in a recent news release that it was  an honour for the organisation to collaborate with the Brain Health ARC and the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative. He went on to note that our challenge attracted a multi-disciplined group of the UK’s leading researchers to interrogate the Bio-Hermes database, and he looked forward to their scientific contributions.

We recently featured some of the responses to our challenge in a Data Summit. At the event research teams were given the opportunity to showcase their concepts in three different categories; a poster presentation, quick-fire project presentation, and oral presentation. You can find details of the winners and their universities on the Brain ARC website.

The Data Challenge ethos of end-to-end support, fully open access data, and collaborative team science has represented a new approach to dementia research, and we are pleased to announce that the Brain Health ARC will be launching a second challenge later in 2025.

Professor Terry Quinn, Brain Health ARC Director, 8 June 2025