An Alzheimer’s disease breakthrough?
[Via Field of Science Combined Feed]
We all hope to get old one day. But if we do, our chances of getting Alzheimer’s disease increase dramatically as we move into our 80s. As many as 50% of people over age 85 may be affected. Much progress has been made in understanding the disease, which appears to be caused by “plaques” forming in the brain, but we have no treatment and no cure.
But maybe – just possibly – a dramatic new study offers the first real hope for a treatment. In a paper published today in the journal Science, a team of researchers led by Gary Landreth at Case Western University and his graduate student Paige Cramer found that an orphan drug called bexarotene has a remarkable affect on mice afflicted with a condition similar to Alzheimer’s in humans. These mice have similar plaques in their brains, compose of beta-amyloid proteins, and they show behavioral and cognitive impairment similar to some of the problems experienced by Alzheimer’s patients.
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While there are all sorts of caveats with mice work, there are some interesting aspects of this research that could result in a very rapid drug development cycle.
One is the drug is already approved for human use. So moving into clinical trials could happen without all the normal pre-clinical data usually required when going from mice to human studies.
And there is also a substantial amount of biological knowledge of how this drug actually works.
Even with the admonition, it is likely that some groups may even try some ‘unofficial’ trials with this drug. It has some big side effects but when facing Alzheimer’s I imagine they are worth it.
And if the results in humans are as rapid as seen in mice, we might know relatively quickly.
