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The Dementia Trials Accelerator (DTA): a UK dementia trials-ready cohort
Whiteley, W.; van Duijn, C. M.; Postlethwaite, N.; Beal, E.; Bennett, K.; Blakoe, G.; Brooks, H.; Collet et al.. medRxiv (preprint), 2026-08-19
Topic: Risk, prevention and care in population studies
The Dementia Trials Accelerator (DTA) is a UK-wide programme designed to improve the feasibility, efficiency, and inclusiveness of recruitment into clinical trials of dementia and related brain-health conditions. Dementia trials are frequently constrained by the difficulty and cost of identifying eligible participants, which often requires cognitive assessments and measurement of blood-based biomarkers. The DTA addresses these barriers with two linked services. First, the DTA provides a federated platform to improve findability of potential participants across existing UK-based cohorts with consent to recontact. A single point of contact across multiple cohorts would allow increased efficiency of search for participants for studies. Second, the DTA provides a community-centred pre-screening service with information relevant to trial eligibility and a linked plasma and DNA tissue bank, with participants consent for recontact. Participants aged 65-75 years are approached via existing cohorts and registries. Consenting participants complete an online questionnaire and digital cognitive assessment, attend an in-person assessment for physical measures and face-to-face cognitive testing, and provide venous blood samples which are processed to plasma and whole blood for long-term storage and biomarker measurement. The initial programme target is to recruit at least 10,000 participants into the DTA pre-screening service. The DTA is designed to support approved academic and industry studies by enabling the DTA team to approach eligible participants for specific studies, without transferring identifiable information without consent. In parallel with its immediate trial-readiness purpose, the DTA is positioned to interoperate with emerging national approaches to biomarker-led recruitment by generating high-quality, recontactable cohorts with standardised cognitive characterisation and scalable biosampling suitable for blood-based biomarkers.
Cite this study APA, Vancouver, BibTeX · download .bib or .ris
APA 7th
Whiteley, W., van Duijn, C. M., Postlethwaite, N., Beal, E., Bennett, K., Blakoe, G., et al. (2026). The Dementia Trials Accelerator (DTA): a UK dementia trials-ready cohort. medRxiv (preprint). https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.08.14.26359869
Vancouver
Whiteley W, van Duijn CM, Postlethwaite N, Beal E, Bennett K, Blakoe G, et al. The Dementia Trials Accelerator (DTA): a UK dementia trials-ready cohort. medRxiv (preprint). 2026. doi:10.64898/2026.08.14.26359869.
BibTeX
@article{whiteley2026-25fefcbf,
author = {Whiteley, W. and van Duijn, C. M. and Postlethwaite, N. and Beal, E. and Bennett, K. and Blakoe, G. and Brooks, H. and Collet and others},
title = {{The Dementia Trials Accelerator (DTA): a UK dementia trials-ready cohort}},
journal = {medRxiv (preprint)},
year = {2026},
doi = {10.64898/2026.08.14.26359869},
url = {https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.08.14.26359869}
}
Built from the record alzhub holds for this paper, not looked up. Volume, issue and page numbers are not held in the record. The record's author list ends in “et al.”, so not every author is named. Check the citation against the original before you use it.
Key findings
- Participants aged 65-75 years are approached via existing cohorts and registries.
- Consenting participants complete an online questionnaire and digital cognitive assessment, attend an in-person assessment for physical measures and face-to-face cognitive testing, and provide venous blood samples which are processed to plasma and whole blood for long-term storage and biomarker measurement.
- The initial programme target is to recruit at least 10,000 participants into the DTA pre-screening service.
- The DTA is designed to support approved academic and industry studies by enabling the DTA team to approach eligible participants for specific studies, without transferring identifiable information without consent.
- In parallel with its immediate trial-readiness purpose, the DTA is positioned to interoperate with emerging national approaches to biomarker-led recruitment by generating high-quality, recontactable cohorts with standardised cognitive characterisation and scalable biosampling suitable for blood-based biomarkers.
Why it matters
This UK programme aims to make dementia trial recruitment faster and more inclusive by linking existing cohorts and pre-screening participants aged 65 to 75, with a target of at least 10,000 people. It is an infrastructure and recruitment initiative, not a treatment or prevention study.
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Study details
- Participants10,000
- Evidence strengthLow
How this study scored 16/100
Preprint — not yet peer-reviewed. It scored 31 on the same rubric, but non-peer-reviewed sources are capped at 16, so it shows as 16. Scored zero for study design, effect reported and randomised / blinded because the record does not state it. We have no data on impact for its field and year, so that was left out: it earned 29 of the 94 points we could judge it on, which is 31 out of 100.
| Component | Points | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Journal tier | 2 / 10 | Tier 4 — not a peer-reviewed journal (medRxiv (preprint)) |
| Journal's citation record | 0 / 4 | Not a journal article, so the journal's record does not count |
| Study design | 0 / 12 | No study design recorded — scores zero, not guessed (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Strength of evidence | 1 / 5 | Rated “low” in our summary |
| Peer-review validation | 4 / 10 | Preprint — not yet peer-reviewed. Hosted on a preprint server. |
| How recent | 5 / 5 | 2026 — within 1 year(s) of the newest study here |
| Sample size | 4 / 4 | 10,000 participants |
| Effect reported | 0 / 3 | No effect size reported — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Studied in people | 3 / 3 | Studied in people (participant count stated) |
| Randomised / blinded | 0 / 2 | No randomisation or blinding stated — scores zero (not stated in the record — scored 0) |
| Times cited | 0 / 7 | Cited 0 times (OpenAlex, 2026-10-10) |
| Citations per year | 0 / 5 | 0.0 citations a year over 2 year(s) since 2026 |
| Impact for its field and year | — / 6 | No field-weighted citation impact (OpenAlex has none yet) — left out of this score |
| Cited by studies here | 0 / 6 | No other study in this library cites it |
| Still being cited | 0 / 4 | Cited 0 times in 2024–2026 (2026 still in progress; OpenAlex) |
| Senior author's track record | 3 / 4 | Last-listed author Siddharthan Chandran: h-index 67 (OpenAlex, whole career) |
| Institution's track record | 2 / 3 | University of Oxford: institution h-index 2,205 (OpenAlex) |
| Multi-centre collaboration | 2 / 3 | OpenAlex lists 5 institution(s) in 1 country |
| Indexed in PubMed | 1 / 2 | Not in PubMed, but has a DOI |
| Free to read | 2 / 2 | Free to read |
| Points | 29 / 94 | Scored on 19 of 20 parts. We have no data for the rest, so they are left out: 29 of the 94 points we could judge it on is 31 out of 100. |
| Total | 31 / 100 | Capped to 16 because this is not a peer-reviewed article. |
What each of these 20 components measures, and what this score is not →
Read the original
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Also tagged “prevalence”
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