Has Stanford University found a cure for Alzheimer's disease?
4 replies
ckparrotheadStaffOPAlzheimer's could be prevented and even cured by boosting the brain's own immune response, new research suggests.
Researchers at Standford University discovered that nerve cells die because cells which are supposed to clear the brain of bacteria, viruses and dangerous deposits, stop working.
These cells, called 'microglia' function well when people are young, but when they age, a single protein called EP2 stops them operating efficiently.
Now scientists have shown that blocking the protein allows the microglia to function normally again so they can hoover up the dangerous sticky amyloid-beta plaques which damage nerve cells in Alzheimer's disease.
The researchers found that, in mice, blocking EP2 with a drug reversed memory loss and myriad other Alzheimer’s-like features in the animals.
Very interesting. Seems very promising. Alzheimers is the 6th leading cause of death in the US. About 1 in 9 people over 65 have Alzheimer's, and 1 in 3 over 85.
Seems the key will be finding a compound that only blocks this EP2 protein so as to prevent unwanted side effects. Obviously genetic engineering us to not produce EP2 is out of the question (or is it? mwaha).
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Ronnie BassLuxury BoxI work at Merck and supposedly we are close to finding a medication for Alzheimers:
OhiophinphanStaffWow, could it be that simple? One protein? Such a breakthrough would change the whole fabric of America. The whole senior health industry would be dramatically altered. Thanks for sharing this and I will watch developments with great interest. In congregations I serve it is not uncommon for me to be visiting 15-20 Alzheimer patients a month!
OHIOPHINPHAN
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Ohio FanaticSupporter"Ronnie Bass wrote:
I work at Merck and supposedly we are close to finding a medication for Alzheimers:
I have all the respect in the world for Merck - still one of the better pure research pharma companies out there. but you can't make that statement at ALL. Merck has setup a collaboration to investigate a preclinical compound from Adelaide which may have an effect on treating CNS diseases like Alzheimers.
1) the failure rate for preclinical CNS compounds in the clinic is insanely high.
2) getting something that shows a significant effect in a mouse model for a CNS indication has at best a poor translation rate to humans for Alzheimers
I give Merck a ton of credit for exploring all options to go after this disease, even re-investigating BACE inhibitors. THis is one potential pathway of the many that are in a preclinical phase. I work in neuroscience. My team can design compounds that can completely remyelinate the axons in the brain of a mouse. If we can do it in humans, we can cure MS - one of the biggest hurdles in the industry, a holy grail for many researchers. However, translating between a mouse model and efficacy in humans - give it a 1-2% chance at best. that's how difficult treating CNS diseases is and why (unfortunately) many big pharma have gotten out of CNS indications.
testing
Ohio FanaticSupporter"Ohiophinphan wrote:
Wow, could it be that simple? One protein? Such a breakthrough would change the whole fabric of America. The whole senior health industry would be dramatically altered. Thanks for sharing this and I will watch developments with great interest. In congregations I serve it is not uncommon for me to be visiting 15-20 Alzheimer patients a month!
"one protein" is something many diseases can make a similar claim as the reason behind their malfunction. whether it's a misfolding event (like CF) or lack of clearance (like Alzheimers) or overproduction (like rheumatoid arthritis - in case of RA, it's actually many proteins over expressed - any one of which can lead to a downstream effect like RA) or underproduction. the key is to whether you can modulate the levels of protein without screwing up the rest of the biochemical pathways. 10x harder to do in the brain.
testing