Alzheimer’s disease (AD) affects over 35 million people worldwide and yet there are currently no medicines which slow down the progress of the disease. The ADAPTED project aims to boost the development of new medicines by investigating an area of AD research which has previously received little attention – the APOE gene. The APOE gene is a well-known risk factor for developing the disease, but precisely how this gene contributes to the risk of developing AD is not known. People who carry the APOE4 version of the gene have a considerably higher risk of developing AD. They also tend to develop the disease much earlier in life. However, the reasons for this are not well understood and therefore APOE has largely been ignored in the quest to find treatments for AD. By bringing together leading experts in a range of state-of-the-art technologies, including three research-intensive small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), ADAPTED hopes to gain better insights into the causes of AD, something that will in turn lead to better treatments for patients.