Researchers at the University of Bristol are about to start work on new projects investigating the causes of Alzheimer's disease. They have been awarded £340,000 by the UK's leading dementia research charity, the Alzheimer's Research Trust.

Talented Bristol researchers have won three grants. One will support promising young scientist Dr Scott Miners to study some of the fundamental biology of Alzheimer's disease. The second will make it possible for researchers in the University’s Dementia Research Group at Frenchay Hospital, to work with scientists in Sheffield and Oxford, to help them understand more about one of the harmful effects Alzheimer's has on the brain.

The third grant, jointly funded by local charity BRACE, has gone to Seth Love, Professor of Neuropathology at the University’s Dementia Research Group and Director of the South West Dementia Brain Bank, for a state of the art microscope, which will boost all the research into dementia in Bristol.

Dr Patrick Kehoe, Gestetner Senior Research Fellow at the University’s Dementia Research Group, said: "This investment will both underpin and deepen the scope of our future research into Alzheimer's disease. It will help us learn more about the disease and how we may be able to develop new treatments."

Sian MacGowan, Chief Executive of BRACE, said: "We are happy to collaborate with the Alzheimer's Research Trust in the purchase of this equipment; it will provide the researchers in Bristol with the means to undertake even more complex and groundbreaking studies in the future."

Rebecca Wood, Chief Executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said, "We are delighted to be funding such cutting edge research at the University of Bristol.

"There are 700,000 people in the UK with dementia and this number is expected to double within a generation, we desperately need to fund more research in order to find a treatment or cure for this terrible disease.

"We wish our scientists in Bristol all the best with their research."