Alzheimer’s discovery wins Curtinnovation prize

It might have seemed like a battle between resources efficiency and digital health and wellbeing but the winner of this year’s Curtinnovation awards was from the traditional world of medical research – a possible cause of Alzheimer’s disease.

Led by John Curtin Distinguished Professor John Mamo, the 2022 winner was awarded for research which found in mouse models that Alzheimer’s disease, the most prevalent form of dementia globally, was caused by leakage from blood into the brain of fat-carrying particles transporting toxic proteins.

The annual Curtinnovation Awards recognise exceptional research into new products and services that benefit the community.

Curtin University Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research Professor Chris Moran said the winning Alzheimer’s research project was an example of how high-quality research can benefit the wider community through commercialisation.

“The research by Professor Mamo and his team has significant implications for people living with Alzheimer’s disease. The ground-breaking discovery of the “blood-to-brain” pathway and the promising results of the cardiovascular drug probucol offers potential new prevention and treatment opportunities for patients,” Professor Moran said.

“The researchers are now conducting a clinical trial to test if probucol stabilises the cognitive performance in patients with early Alzheimer’s, and a provisional patent for the novel pro-drug formulation, developed by the Curtin team, has been filed.”

Category winners against which the Alzheimer’s disease project were up against included three resources projects: drilling fluid automation called iFluid,; orebody characterisation using machine learning and MWD data; and hydrogen export as a powder (notably a chemical process and a catalyst that enables sodium borohydride to be cost-effectively recycled from sodium metaborate after the release of hydrogen).

There were also three digital health and wellbeing category winners: SWAMSmob app for South West Aboriginal Medical Service patients; HerHelp mental health mobile app; and an online suicide-prevention tool to identify university students who are at risk of suicide, offering referral and intervention before they are suicidal.

Another category winner was in financial services: Assuro which makes the process for acquiring bank guarantees and bonds more efficient.