With the onset of Alzheimer's disease expected to quadruple in the Australian population, researcher Ralph Martins is in a race against time.
Professor Martins is working towards an early diagnostic blood test for Alzheimer's.
Prof Martins, who was born in Bahrain and moved to Western Australia at the age of 16, is the state's candidate for the 2010 Australian of the Year award for his groundbreaking research into the degenerative disease.
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His team made a significant discovery in 1985 showing the beta amyloid protein that coats the brain is the foundation for Alzheimer's.
Diagnostic test
Prof Martins is now working towards developing a diagnostic blood test by identifying up to five markers indicating which people will develop the disease.
Through his work at the McCusker Foundation for Alzheimer's Disease Research in Perth, two blood markers have already been identified.
"That's what will be so crucial, most of the failed drug trials that have taken place in the past happen so late in the game," Prof Martins said.
"By the time the symptoms appear those parts of the brain to do with memory and reason are severely damaged and you can't replace existing brain cells.
"There are stem cells but that is still a long, long way away.
Agents 'neutralised'
"If you can start picking up changes when the brain is not damaged then it can be effectively rescued and any damaging agents can be neutralised before causing that irreversible damage."
The early diagnostic tool, coupled with anti-amyloid drugs which are being tested in clinical trials could prevent the onset of symptoms.
More than 200,000 people in Australia suffer from dementia at a cost of $6 billion a year.
But Prof Martins said the problem would quadruple in the future as Australia's population aged and the increasing incidence of type two diabetes, which leads to Alzheimer's, could boost the projections higher.
"People still haven't really gauged how big this epidemic is going to be because in the past these calculations have been done on the ageing population... and type two diabetes is an epidemic in its own right," he said.
Prof Martins shares his research with Alzheimer's specialists around the world, including India and his birth country.
He says he is grateful for the opportunities Australia has given him despite an initial bout of homesickness after arriving as a teenager.
Australia 'lucky country'
"Now I would never want to go anywhere else, we are the luckiest country, we have so much freedom, it has so many beautiful qualities, so many friendly people.
"I think Australia is probably the best place for equal opportunity and anyone, if I can do it anyone can do it.
"My uncle said to me when I arrived at the age of 16, this country, if you want to do something, you can achieve it because you have all the support there to do it.
"And I believe that, this really is the land of opportunity provided you want to work for it."
Besides funding certainty for the study of a group of more than 1,000 people to identify more about Alzheimer's, Prof Martins believes the one thing that would make Australia a better place is a higher level of engagement with the elderly.
