Alzheimer's Disease INSIGHTS

Since the launch of World Alzheimer's Month in 2012 by Alzheimer's Disease International, the prevalence of this disease has continued to climb. Today, approximately six million US patients are living with the disease. By 2050, an estimated 13 million people in the US will be afflicted with Alzheimer's disease (AD)1. While the number of new cases per 100,000 is on the decline, due to better understanding of...  Read More

Alzheimer's Disease International reports there are 50 million people worldwide living with Alzheimer's Disease (AD), but there remain few approved treatments and no cure. The amount spent to care for patients with AD is over $1 trillion USD, or 1% of global GDP, and experts believe that number will grow to 152 million people by 2050. So where are we in the search for an effective treatment...  Read More

It is estimated that 5.8 million Americans are currently living with Alzheimer's Disease (AD). AD is a progressive, lifelong condition for which there is currently no cure. Treatment consists of managing the symptoms associated with the disease and include medicines that aim to maintain mental function, manage behavioral symptoms, and slow down memory loss1,2. Many clinical trials are currently active in the study of AD-related drugs. One...  Read More

In a recent Alzheimer's Research and Therapy article, scientists described failing to elicit beneficial effects from a tau-directed antibody therapy while evaluating its efficacy in the Tg4510 mouse, an Alzheimer's disease (AD) model with a tamoxifen-controlled transgene expressing P301L mutant tau. The results contrast prior successes reported with the antibody therapy the researchers were testing. The therapeutic, a tau oligomer-specific monoclonal antibody (TOMA), was reported to rescue...  Read More

A Redox Link between APOE4 and Alzheimer's Disease Risk? Individuals homozygous for APOE4, one of three common genetic variants encoding Apolipoprotein E (apoE), carry approximately twelve-times higher risk for an Alzheimer's disease (AD) diagnosis. A recent study suggests a potentially critical link between apoE4 and the antioxidant enzyme Thioredoxin-1 (Trx1) may underlie enhanced AD risk in APOE4 carriers. APOE Alleles Modify Alzheimer's Risk ApoE protein is predominantly...  Read More

In late 2016 Biogen reported exciting results for aducanumab, their Phase 1 monoclonal antibody therapy for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Patients who received aducanumab showed significant and dose-dependent reduction of brain Amyloid-β (Aβ) and slowing of disease progression. Pre-clinical studies in the APPSWE/Tg2576 mouse model of AD provided the mechanistic clues, dosing insights, and efficacy data that informed the design of Biogen's successful aducanumab Phase I trial. Now,...  Read More

Despite tau proteins having essential roles in neurodegeneration and amyloid-mediated neurotoxicity, Alzheimer's disease (AD) therapeutic development has largely focused on amyloid-beta. Recent investigations, in humans and rodent Alzheimer's Disease models, suggest specific tau species might be major pathological contributors to AD progression and, as such, an even better target than amyloid-beta for effective AD therapies. Tau Proteins in Alzheimer's Disease Monomeric tau proteins are abundant in neurons,...  Read More

Past research efforts, focused on Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology and the genetics of familial AD, led to the discovery of important AD-related proteins, including amyloid-beta (Aβ) and tau. However, efforts to develop AD therapies based on targeting Aβ and tau have largely failed. Years of disappointing trials have brought increasing demand for new AD targets and alternative treatment approaches. Using mice expressing apolipoprotein E4 (apoE4), a human...  Read More

Increasingly obesity and its associated comorbidities (cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, etc.) are identified as risk factors for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Determining the link between diet and Alzheimer's disease has been challenging, in large part due to obesity's association with numerous systemic physiological changes. Recent studies suggest that poor maternal diet can influence epigenetic changes which predispose offspring to the development of metabolic syndromes. Since...  Read More

In a 2015 report, a team of scientist from the Weizmann Institute of Science provided compelling evidence that boosting the immune response in the brain (as opposed to suppressing it) might be a promising avenue for Alzheimer's research. In an extension of its initial findings, the team found that inhibiting an immune-checkpoint pathway which is targeted in the treatment of certain forms of cancer dramatically reduces Alzheimer's...  Read More