Dementia Overcoming Project Team Launched... Tackling Dementia with 200 Billion KRW Investment and International Research

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[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] The government is set to make a full-scale push to develop dementia overcoming technologies, one of the biggest challenges in an aging society, by investing a total of 200 billion KRW and through international research cooperation.

The Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Health and Welfare held an opening ceremony for the Dementia Overcoming Research and Development Project Group on the afternoon of the 28th at Seoul National University Hospital located in Jongno-gu, Seoul.

The Dementia Overcoming Research and Development Project is a joint initiative by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Health and Welfare to develop dementia overcoming technologies, investing a total project cost of 198.7 billion KRW (169.4 billion KRW in national funds) over nine years starting from 2020. The project group aims to secure core technologies to overcome dementia through research and development in three areas: ▲ research on dementia causes and pathogenesis ▲ development of dementia prediction and diagnostic technologies ▲ development of dementia prevention and treatment technologies, with the goal of reducing the annual 4.8% increase rate of dementia patients.

In particular, the project group plans to acquire know-how from advanced countries with superior medical technologies that have entered aging societies earlier than Korea through international joint research. As part of follow-up measures from the Korea-US summit in May, joint precision medicine research based on dementia big data will be conducted with the US National Institute on Aging (NIA). Additionally, Korea will participate in the Dominantly Inherited AD Network (DIAN), a consortium of 14 global research institutions led by the US. A memorandum of understanding for mutual data exchange has also been signed with the UK's Dementias Platform UK (DPUK) to ensure close cooperation.

Ko Seo-gon, Director of Research and Development Policy at the Ministry of Science and ICT, stated, "By utilizing foreign dementia research data through such international cooperative research, we expect to shorten the development period for domestic dementia prevention and treatment technologies."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.