Using the power of iPSCs for patient stratification

Dementia affects over 55 million people worldwide and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) accounts for up to 70% of these people. Most Alzheimer’s disease cases are described as late-onset Alzheimer’s disease and occur after the age of 65.

One of the most decisive risk factors in developing Alzheimer’s disease is having two copies of the APOE4 allele, which can result in a 15-fold increase in the risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Around 2–3% of cases are the result of a hereditary condition known as early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, and these are strongly associated with mutations in presenilin-1 (PSEN1), amyloid precursor protein (APP), and presenilin-2 (PSEN2) genes.