Failed Alzheimer’s research to be given radical shake-up

are also rising rapidly as the population ages.

Professor De Strooper is a former head of the laboratory for the research of neurodegenerative diseases at Leuven University, Belgium.

He was head-hunted to run the new institute after publishing a research paper last year which challenged the “amyloid hypothesis” that has dominated dementia research since the 1980s.

This is the idea that Alzheimer’s and many other dementias are triggered by the accumulation of two deformed proteins, amyloid and tau, which poison the brain. As a result researchers have spent much of the last two decades trying to formulate drugs that remove the rogue proteins.

But trials of several of these therapies have ultimately been deemed failures.

Professor De Strooper has said other approaches should now also be examined.

He added: “We know that these proteins are involved in Alzheimer’s and other dementias but they are only part of the picture.

“The evidence suggests that inflammation is another key factor in killing brain cells and we should be targeting that.”

John Davis, chief scientist at Alzheimer’s Research UK’s Oxford drug discovery unit, said at least 20 rogue genes were linked with an elevated dementia risk.

Some of those genes are implicated in the workings of microglia, the brain’s immune cells, which are emerging as a key target for research.

Diego Gomez-Nicola, associate professor of neuroscience at Southampton University, said microglia played a central role in brain inflammation.

He said: “This is the beginning of a new era.

“The field has been narrowly focused on amyloid for years but it has turned out to be the wrong idea so we need to look elsewhere.

“We must learn from the failed trials and follow new ideas more freely and not defend old ones.”

The Government unveiled plans for the new £150million Dementia Research Institute in November 2015 as part of a drive to combat the condition.