ACE ALZHEIMER CENTER BARCELONA PROMOTES RESEARCH ON ALZHEIMER’S AND DEMENTIA IN AFRICA

• Ace Alzheimer Center Barcelona will allocate 200,000 euros between 2026 and 2031 to strengthen research, scientific training, and early detection of dementia in Africa.
• The project aims to screen 3,600 people over 50 years old in Cameroon and advance the creation of follow-up cohorts and biobanks.
• The alliance with Brain Health Africa will support the training of around 40 African researchers per year and the adaptation of diagnostic tools to a country with more than 250 languages.

Research on Alzheimer’s and other dementias has advanced significantly in recent decades, but not at the same pace in all regions of the world, nor with the same representation of all populations. People living on the African continent remain underrepresented in major international studies on neurodegenerative diseases, despite Africa’s enormous genetic, cultural and linguistic diversity.

With the aim of helping to close this gap, Ace Alzheimer Center Barcelona and Brain Health Africa have signed a five-year collaboration agreement aimed at strengthening scientific training, research and early detection of dementia on the continent.

Under the agreement, Ace will allocate 200,000 euros to the project between 2026 and 2031, through annual contributions of 40,000 euros linked to meeting the planned objectives. The investment will help fund part of the program’s administrative and operational structure in Cameroon, support the organization of the annual in-person AI-BOND school, and advance the creation of an international research network on neurodegenerative diseases led from Africa.

An alliance for more diverse science

In addition to its financial contribution, Ace will contribute to the project through technical expertise and scientific collaboration. The organization will train African centers in the use of digital cognitive screening tools and support the adaptation of these resources to different languages, educational levels and cultural contexts, including the possible adaptation of FACEmemory, the early detection digital tool developed by Ace.

The collaboration also includes support for researcher training, the development of common research protocols and standardized procedures, the creation of follow-up cohorts and biobanks, and the progressive collection of accessible, low-cost clinical data and biological samples, such as saliva or dried blood samples.

Brain Health Africa will act as the on-the-ground implementing organization and will be responsible for hiring and managing the local team, coordinating the program’s scientific implementation, processing the necessary ethical approvals, and leading, together with Ace, the organization of the AI-BOND school.

“After more than three decades working in the diagnosis, care, and research of dementia, at Ace we know that knowledge only advances if it is shared. This collaboration with Brain Health Africa allows us to contribute our experience in care models, research and early detection, but also to learn from a different scientific, cultural and social reality, which is essential for building truly global and inclusive research,” says Dr. Mercè Boada, co-founder and medical director of Ace Alzheimer Center Barcelona.

Getting ahead of a public health challenge

Although Africa is today the continent with the youngest population in the world, its progressive aging will cause Alzheimer’s and other dementias to gain weight in its healthcare systems in the coming decades. Getting ahead of this scenario requires training professionals, developing scientific infrastructure and generating knowledge adapted to the characteristics of its populations.

Brain Health Africa is working to build a scientific infrastructure that makes it possible to study dementia from an African reality and with African leadership. The goal is to avoid models in which data is collected on the continent but analyzed and interpreted exclusively from other contexts, and to encourage African institutions and researchers to participate in all phases of the scientific process.

One of Brain Health Africa’s flagship programs is AI-BOND, aimed at training African scientists in areas such as biostatistics, bioinformatics, genomics and neurodegenerative diseases. The program, which trains around 40 researchers per year, received more than 400 applications from 28 countries in one of its most recent calls.

Another line of work will be the creation of longitudinal cohorts and biobanks to gather clinical, sociodemographic and biological data. In Cameroon, the project aims to screen 3,600 people over 50 years old to create an initial baseline cohort that will help better understand how dementia manifests and progresses in populations that have so far been little studied.

Over the five years of collaboration, the project will seek to consolidate the network of participating centers, harmonize protocols and create the conditions needed to attract competitive international funding and progressively expand its scope.

Diagnosis adapted to cultural diversity

One of the main challenges is adapting diagnostic tools to highly diverse linguistic, cultural and educational contexts. More than 250 languages are spoken in Cameroon, where populations with very different realities coexist, making it necessary to validate cognitive tests in local languages and develop methods that do not rely exclusively on formal schooling.

The adaptation of digital screening tools will help move toward more reliable assessments, reduce the risk of biased diagnoses and provide healthcare professionals with resources tailored to the needs of the communities in which they work.

“Studying dementia in Africa is not just about transferring existing research models, but about building tools that are valid for its populations, its languages and its social contexts,” said people in Ace.

Raising awareness to counter stigma

The social dimension of the project is another of its pillars. In some African communities, symptoms of cognitive decline may be interpreted as non-medical phenomena, which delays seeking care, hinders diagnosis and increases stigma toward affected individuals and their families.

For this reason, Brain Health Africa combines biomedical research with programs of community awareness-raising, professional training, and dialogue with health authorities. These actions can help improve understanding of dementia, encourage families to seek help sooner, and generate useful evidence for planning care resources in the face of the population’s progressive aging.

With this collaboration, Ace Alzheimer Center Barcelona and Brain Health Africa aim to promote dementia research that is more global, equitable and adapted to local realities, while also strengthening permanent scientific and clinical capacities on the African continent.