Clinical Research at the DZNE

DZNE's clinical research aims to develop new and effective therapies for neurodegenerative diseases. In order to achieve this, not only treatment studies are required. Rather, diagnostic procedures must also be improved so that diseases can be identified earlier and classified more accurately.

The Clinical Research of the DZNE is supported by the Clinical Network, made up of the DZNE locations Berlin, Bonn, Dresden, Göttingen, Magdeburg, Munich, Rostock/Greifswald und Tübingen and is coordinated from Bonn. The Clinical Network enables large studies to be conducted according to uniform standards.

First brain changes occur in neurodegenerative diseases more than ten years before the onset of disease symptoms. When the diagnosis is made, extensive irreversible brain damage already exists, so that many therapies are too late. Clinical research develops new biomarkers that enable earlier diagnosis and define subgroups of diseases through detailed investigations of risk individuals and patients. In the future, these markers will be used to test therapy approaches in the early stages of diseases and to apply therapies more individually.

Treatment studies are conducted by the DZNE as self-initiated studies and in cooperation with partners from the pharmaceutical industry. Special attention is paid to the rapid transfer of fundamental research results into clinical applications.