New Alzheimer's Study to Scan Healthy Brains Looking For Signs of Amyloid and Tau

[Wally]

Scientists are scanning the brains of healthy elderly citizens as part of an ambitious new Alzheimer's treatment which hopes to discover the cause of the disease.

Previous research has identified two hallmarks of Alzheimer's - sticky brain plaque and tangles of a protein named tau that clog dying brain cells.

Using the latest technology, experts can now spot these tangles in living brains - and they hope that extensive scanning of healthy subjects will provide clues to what triggers the debilitating disease.

The tau brain scans will be added to a new study in the U.S. that's testing if an experimental drug might help healthy but at-risk people stave off Alzheimer's.

Whether that medication works or not, it's the first drug study where scientists can track how both of Alzheimer's signature markers begin building up in older adults before memory ever slips.

'The combination of amyloid and tau is really the toxic duo - to see it in life is really striking,' said Dr. Reisa Sperling of Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who is leading the so-called A4 study, which is enrolling participants in the U.S., Australia and Canada.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...erve-cells-trigger-disease.html#ixzz3bCKFF25t

 

[duncan]

Thank you, Wally, for posting this.

I thought doubt had been thrown on this connection. Perhaps I am misremembering that. Still, if treatments are involved, I'd look hard at who is sponsoring the trials.

 

[Wally]

@duncan - Here is info. about the sponsor of this study.

At the same time, study participants will receive either an experimental anti-amyloid drug - Eli Lilly & Co.'s solanezumab - or a placebo as researchers track their memory.

The £90million study is funded by the National Institutes of Health, Lilly and others; the Alzheimer's Association helped fund the addition of the tau scans.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a...erve-cells-trigger-disease.html#ixzz3bCi9Pm9U

 

[Scarecrow]

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...uld-slow-progression-of-disease-10407819.html

Alzheimer’s: Early trial shows new drug solanezumab could slow progression of disease
Long-frustrated hopes of finding a viable treatment for Alzheimer’s have received a boost, after promising early trial results indicated an experimental new drug can slow the progression of the disease.

While the impact of solanezumab on patients’ condition was mild, the findings have raised excitement because they strongly indicate the drug is acting on the disease process itself, rather than just the symptoms. If the positive results are confirmed in another trial, due to report within 18 months, solanezumab would be the first drug to achieve this.

Developed by American drugs company Eli Lilley, solanezumab works by targeting clumps of proteins known as amyloids that gradually build into plaques, which interfere with connections between brain cells and are believed to be a major underlying cause of Alzheimer’s......................

 

[Msmaud]

People interested in Amyloidoisis as possible cause for ME/CFS may be interested in this update:

Merck's Alzheimer drug Verubecestat gets one step close, in Phase 111. Good BACE1 study results http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/8/363/363ra150.full

Quote: Merck’s drug significantly reduced levels of amyloid beta in the fluid surrounding the brain among the actual patients taking the drug. Dosing was short, with only 32 patients getting the drug daily for a week.

And Lilly also hot on the track with second phase 111 proposed:

https://endpts.com/merck-cant-prove...-explain-why-its-spending-a-fortune-on-phiii/

Quote:

Lilly was so committed to solanezumab — which also targets amyloid beta — that it mounted a new Phase III program after the last one failed. It also recently relegated one key measure on function to a secondary endpoint, flagging its lack of confidence on that score.

And most investigators in the field are moving upstream in the disease pathology, hoping to check the disease before it causes serious damage.

Despite billions spent on new trials over the past decade, though, the field has been afflicted by one setback after the next. Now Merck will take the most advanced study on BACE and help set the stage for a new field in which rivals are hustling along competing therapies, hoping to cash in on one of the biggest unmet medical needs in the business.

Lilly will be first up with new Phase III data on solanezumab in a matter of weeks. Merck will follow in July. Sometime over the next year, we’ll be able to understand much better just what role amyloid beta plays in Alzheimer’s. And if anyone scores pay dirt data, the payoff will potentially be worth billions a year from a new drug franchise. Losers will be relegated to a growing cemetery of failed programs.