How we can help

Childhood Dementia Initiative can provide:

• Data on childhood dementia and its impact
• Expert comment and insight on the design of your research projects
• Access to family input and insights
• Opportunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing with other researchers and clinicians through our Research and Health Professionals Alliances, webinars and the Childhood Dementia Symposium
• Communication of research outcomes to national and international stakeholder audiences
• Advocacy for funding and connections to potential funders 
• Input on the translation of any identified treatments into patient benefit

We welcome genuine research partnerships. If you are applying for funding we’d love to hear your ideas. You can reach us at: hello@childhooddementia.org

Learn more:

How we accelerate research

“By working under the umbrella of childhood dementia there is tremendous potential to achieve economies of scope and scale and translate research into therapeutics and diagnostics. It is such an innovation.”

- Tiffany Boughtwood, Managing Director of Australian Genomics & member of the Childhood Dementia Initiative Scientific and Medical Advisory Committee

Typically, research into childhood dementia conditions has been siloed and focused on single disorders. Yet the shared presentation and impacts of these conditions offer a powerful opportunity. Research that investigates multiple childhood dementias, or mechanisms common to multiple disorders, can enable to date untapped economies of scale and greater benefits for children. 

A growing body of literature suggests that common disease mechanisms exist between adult and childhood-onset dementias. Cross pollination and collaboration between childhood and adult-onset dementia research and clinical care systems will lead to advancement in therapeutic development and improvements in care and quality of life for affected families.

Additionally, sharing data, technology, and infrastructure, including patient registries and biobanking, can deliver significant efficiencies. Shared and streamlined platform technologies to deliver high-cost gene therapy to children with dementia can also deliver faster, urgently needed results. 

“There is no better time than now for the Childhood Dementia Initiative to be in operation! Finally, we have a coalescence of brilliant advocates who provide a united voice for children and their families in desperate need of support and hope. Moreover, advances in the capacity to make a diagnosis earlier in the course of the disease, and the development of innovative novel genetic and other therapies, now make us really optimistic about being able to make a significant impact on the lives of children affected by these devastating disorders.”

- John Christodoulou, Professor and Chair of Genomic Medicine at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute and the University of Melbourne.