Australian dementia consortium joins global data project

An Australian research consortium will contribute dementia data to a new international platform aimed at beating Alzheimer’s Disease.

The UNSW-led Cohort Studies of Memory in an International Consortium (COSMIC) announced this week it will be part of the Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC) global cohort development (GCD) program.

The GDC is a data platform aimed providing researchers access to brain related health data from a broad range of diverse global populations collected from research labs, hospitals and even individual smartphones.

COSMIC, an international consortium combining data from a range of studies and led by the UNSW Centre for Health Brain Ageing (CheBA),  will initially contribute date from cohorts in Brazil, Malaysia, Singapore and the Phillipines.

Principal Investigator Scientia Professor Perminder Sachdev says COSMIC is excited to contribute to the GCD in its first year off the ground.

“We are a group of 44 cohorts representing 33 countries and are pleased that eight have already started their collaboration with DAC,” he said in a statement.

“We look forward to adding more of our cohorts in 2022 and to be part of DAC’s strategic plan of expanding this concept worldwide.”

Director of global cohort development at DAC Dr Rhoda Au said collaboration and inclusion was essential in defeating Alzheimer’s.

“Working in silos with limited representation of participants from across the world is not producing results comprehensively or fast enough,” she said.

“Past studies have skewed results because of the exclusion of low and middle income resourced areas and countries.

“We believe the important work and scientific Data from COSMIC will further advance our understanding of Alzheimer’s disease.”

The Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative was initiated in Davos, Switzerland during the 2020 meeting of the World Economic Forum.

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