It has been a week since the AAIC and we have had time to reflect on a wonderful week in the sun.

The conference is an exciting international meeting drawing fascinating speakers and topics, together with attendees who are passionate about the cause. The conference as always was a mix of breakthroughs and challenges, highlighting the stark realisation that dementia is a complex and growing disease that currently has no cure, but thankfully does have many different stakeholders working together to tackle it!

The AAIC was our first exhibition experience and we felt it was an enormous success. We had a thoroughly enjoyable time discussing the consortium, dementia research gaps and potential collaborations, among other things. Over the few days we were fortunate to discuss the consortia and the current research state with individuals from all corners of the world, many passionate to get their country represented in one way or another. Many conversations described the struggles of applying results from the current research to their own samples within the clinic, whose demographics are a world away from the typical individuals represented in research. Whilst this in general is frustrating, we were happy to see the need for the UNITED consortium to bring together these investigators and aid them in allowing representation of their patients and countries within the research world.

Conferences are also a great time to meet up with current and other potential collaborators. We were fortunate to find some time within everyone’s busy schedule with (new) collaborators from Asia, USA and South America and had a great time discussing the exciting future opportunities that are on the horizon.

Since returning we have seen the AAIC described as diverse, in relation to the diversity of participants, topics, and exhibiting companies. We were also excited to see the enthusiasm and attendance at the Diversity PIA, where we also presented the aims and preliminary work of the UNITED consortium.

Looking forward to the AAIC 2020 in Amsterdam!