This issue highlights advances in the field of drug discovery for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) that were discussed at the 7 th International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Discovery (held on October 12-13 2006 in New York) following previous conferences on similar theme [1-2]. The conference involved around 150 attendees from academia, the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries and focused solely on the development of new drugs for AD and related dementias. This meeting was co-sponsored by the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) and the following generous partners: Accera, Inc., Acumen Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Eisai Inc., Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Forest Laboratories, Inc., Marteck Biosciences Corporation, Neurochem Inc., Ortho-McNeil Neurologics Inc., Pfizer Inc., sanofi-aventis U.S. Inc., Wyeth Research, and Targacept, Inc.