Project description
Slowing down Alzheimer's disease with flashing light
Available treatments for Alzheimer's disease (AD) are ineffective and fail to halt progressive and irreversible brain damage. Recent evidence indicates that non-invasive flashing light can clear amyloid-beta, one of the key pathogenic hallmarks of AD, and offer neural protection. The EU-funded BRIGHT project will conduct a feasibility study for a novel flickering white light therapy that can stimulate the human visual receptors and processing cortex. The white light forms by combining different coloured LEDs and does not cause fatigue like stroboscopic light. The proposed intervention has the potential to delay disease onset, reduce prevalence and associated costs.
Objective
While Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) is a global pandemic, it has been estimated that a five-year delay in the disease onset could reduce the disease prevalence – and its costs – by up to 33% over the next decades, representing potential savings over €100bn in EU alone. However, there are still significant roadblocks ahead as current drugs do not untap sizeable improvements in AD patients. This is primarily due to the challenge of minimizing the impact of irreversible brain damage in later dementia stages, which accentuates the need for early intervention. However, recent evidence shows that non-invasive flashing (stroboscopic) light at the appropriate frequency (40 Hz) promotes clearance of beta-amyloid – whose accumulation is believe to be one of the key triggers to the neurodegenerative cascade leading to dementia states.
Instead of using fadigue-inducing stroboscopic flashing light (i.e. on-off), the founding members of OptoCeutics have devised a unique, patent-protected method to stimulate the human visual receptors and processing cortex through alternating white light composed of different wavelengths. The two variants of the white light are formed by different combinations of coloured LEDs. When flickering between the two LED sets, the colours fusion together and appear as one, resulting in approximately the same white colour, avoiding experiencing light flashing, but the brain is capturing the blue component flashing with 40 Hz – thus still promoting neuro-protective beta-amyloid clearance.
OptoCeutics will leverage from BRIGHT as a vital stepping stone to prepare the company’s business strategy, serving also to significantly de-risk its route-to-market by enabling to liaise with major industrial and clinical players to define both the optimal productization and maturation of Optoceutics core technology, as well as the setup for its full-scale demonstration and certification, prior market roll-out.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- medical and health sciences health sciences public health
- medical and health sciences basic medicine neurology dementia alzheimer
- engineering and technology materials engineering colors
- social sciences economics and business business and management business models
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.2.3. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.3. - PRIORITY 'Societal challenges
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H2020-EU.2.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
2200 KOBENHAVN V
Denmark
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.