There are an estimated 670,000 people living with dementia in the UK and as the population ages this figure is expected to increase; however, there is currently no cure and no new drugs have been licensed to treat the disease since 2002. The impact of dementia can be devastating both for the person diagnosed with the disease and for family, friends and the wider community. Awareness of dementia has grown significantly and whilst this adds pressure to increase publicly funded research, the demands on public money mean its unlikely to be at the scale the problem requires. At RICE we know we cannot afford to wait and have launched the DementiaPlus Appeal to raise £1.23million by 2019 to further develop our research programme.