The ALBORADA Trust is pleased to be partnering with Alzheimer’s Research UK to become the lead donor – with a funding commitment of £5m over five years – to The ALBORADA Drug Discovery Institute at the University of Cambridge.
The Institute’s work is led by Chief Scientific Officer Dr John Skidmore and his team of dedicated drug discovery experts under the guidance of Lead Academic Scientist Prof David Rubinsztein, one of the University’s foremost dementia researchers.
The ALBORADA Drug Discovery Institute is already working closely with the Oxford and UCL Institutes and across the academic research community at these and other leading universities to identify and validate new targets for dementia treatments. The Chief Scientific Officers seek out approaches previously unexplored by the pharmaceutical industry, to build new drug discovery projects, and the Institutes are exploring a wide range of disease mechanisms spanning the full spectrum of dementias.

“On behalf of everyone affected by Alzheimer’s and the other devastating diseases behind dementia, I am delighted by the wonderfully generous and inspiring support of The ALBORADA Trust for our Drug Discovery Institute. It builds on our existing partnership with the Trust around The Alzheimer’s Research UK Stem Cell Research Centre and will enable us to take forward scientific breakthroughs from such centres of expertise into urgently needed potential treatments.”
Hilary Evans – Chief Executive, Alzheimer’s Research UK
The ALBORADA Drug Discovery Institute is already working closely with the Oxford and UCL Institutes and across the academic research community at these and other leading universities to identify and validate new targets for dementia treatments. The Chief Scientific Officers seek out approaches previously unexplored by the pharmaceutical industry, to build new drug discovery projects, and the Institutes are exploring a wide range of disease mechanisms spanning the full spectrum of dementias.
The Alzheimer’s Research UK Drug Discovery Alliance was launched in 2015 with a commitment from the charity of £30m, making it Europe’s biggest co-ordinated drug discovery effort for dementia. The Alliance comprises three Drug Discovery Institutes (DDIs) at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford and at UCL – University College London. It brings together world-leading academic researchers with experienced pharmaceutical experts in drug development.
This commitment to The ALBORADA Drug Discovery Institute is the largest ever made by The ALBORADA Trust and indeed the largest ever received by Alzheimer’s Research UK. The Trust has been keen to fund Alzheimer’s research for many years and in that capacity it has also supported The Stem Cell Research Centre at the Gurdon Institute Cambridge under the guidance of Dr Rick Livesey.