The FP-7 funded neuGRID project will come to a successful conclusion today, announced Dr. Giovanni B. Frisoni, Managing Director and Coordinator of neuGRID, ahead of a high-level seminar at the European Parliament. A major achievement for European e-Science, the neuGRID platform will dramatically accelerate the rate of research into Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases, facilitating early detection of memory loss and better testing the effectiveness of a variety of drug treatments.

neuGRID is a user-friendly online network that provides neuroscientists across Europe with a vast database of 3D brain scans and powerful yet accessible computational tools to analyze them. The neuGRID project, which was implemented from 2008-2011, achieved a major success in September 2009 when it successfully extracted an Alzheimer's disease marker through the use of neuGRID's online archive of thousands of 3D brain scans. With the use of the neuGRID infrastructure, a process that used to take as much as five years was completed in only two weeks.

According to Dr. Frisoni, "Our recent use of the neuGRID to identify Alzheimer's disease markers has proven that the neuGRID infrastructure can increase our knowledge and accelerate our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases. The open nature of neuGRID means it will be accessible to neuroscientists around Europe and the world, expanding the amount of information available and the number of scientists who can study it. neuGRID is democratizing science, fostering the testing of drug treatments and ultimately, I hope, contributing to finding a cure for some truly devastating diseases."

Alzheimer's disease affects 9.1 million Europeans and 30 million people worldwide, an equivalent of 10 percent of the world's elderly population. With its recent success, neuGRID is now firmly positioned to play a fundamental role in helping researchers, doctors, and scientists reduce the massive economic and social costs of this disease.

The neuGRID infrastructure continues to help researchers identify Alzheimer's disease markers, which are fundamental to evaluating how well a drug treatment is working. Extracting markers such as the thinning of the brain cortex on the largest existing patient group could take up to five years, if done on a single mono core computer. neuGRID moves the brain scan analysis process from a single computer to a highly efficient cloud-computing system. This new, user-friendly system-referred to by Frisoni as the "Google for brain imaging"-performs fast and advanced data analyses. Combined, these benefits allow for rapid medical analysis of thousands of brain scans at a dramatically faster pace than previously possible.

Now that neuGRID has proven its usefulness, the next step will be to harmonize and unify the neuGRID infrastructure with similar networks around the world. outGRID, neuGRID's international umbrella organization, is currently working to coordinate projects across the United States, Canada and Europe. Discussing neuGRID's future, Frisoni said, "I am delighted with the progress that our team has made to date, and I encourage policymakers and researchers around the world to continue building off of neuGRID's success and ultimately to integrate neuGRID with similar infrastructures in the United States and Canada. If we can achieve this integration, we will significantly increase our ability to understand, treat and eventually cure neurodegenerative diseases."

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