all Dennis J. Selkoe stories

Scientists Isolate A Toxic Key To Alzheimer's Disease In Human Brains

404132862 — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:12:20 -0400

Scientists isolate a toxic key to Alzheimer's disease in human brains

404132862 — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 20:23:16 -0400

Scientists have long questioned whether the abundant amounts of amyloid plaques found in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's actually caused the neurological disease or were a by-product of its progress. Now, using new research techniques, scientists have shown that a two-molecule aggregate (or dimer) of beta-amyloid protein fragments may play a role in initiating the disease.

Brain implants relieve Alzheimer’s damage

50443248 — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 15:53:35 -0400

Genetically engineered cells implanted in mice have cleared away toxic plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

The animals were sickened with a human gene that caused them to develop, at an accelerated rate, the disease that robs millions of elderly people of their memories. After receiving the doctored cells, the brain-muddling plaques melted away. If this works in humans, old age could be a much happier time of life.

Alzheimer’s involves a protein called amyloid-beta, which makes up gooey clots or plaques that form in the brain. These toxic clumps, along with accessory tangled fibers, kill brain cells and interfere with memory and thinking. The situation has been compared to a build-up of cholesterol in coronary arteries.

Work progressing on Alzheimer's, but too slowly

50443248 — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:59:43 -0400

Actor David Hyde Pierce made an emotional plea for increased activism around Alzheimer's disease Monday (Oct. 17), saying that federal funding has leveled off despite scientific progress in understanding and treating the disease in the last 15 years.
Pierce, a member of the Alzheimer's Association's National Board, watched both his father and grandfather deteriorate and die from the disease, and watched both his mother and grandmother wither under the strain of care-giving and die of other causes.

Vaccine may clear Alzheimer's brain plaques

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:41:07 -0400

While there is still no consensus about the role of waxy amyloid plaques that fill the brains of Alzheimer's patients, many in the field believe they are a root cause of neurodegeneration and that clearing them may improve the cognitive function of patients. A major strategy has been to remove amyloid-beta by creating antibodies against it. But trials for an amyloid-beta vaccine were halted in 2003 when 6 percent of the patients developed life- threatening encephalitis. Since then, two follow-up studies provided some evidence that patients did benefit, raising hopes that a vaccine may work if side effects are limited. Another trial is under way to see if delivering amyloid-beta antibodies, rather than the peptide itself, can be effective and safer.

In the September 2005 Journal of Clinical Investigation, a team led by Howard Weiner, the Robert L. Kroc professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital, unveiled another vaccine strategy for Alzheimer's disease that clears the build-up of amyloid plaques in a mouse model. The new strategy triggers cells of the immune system to gobble up amyloid-beta, sidestepping antibodies completely. It is delivered as a simple nasal spray, and consists of two FDA-approved drugs already in use for other conditions.

The vaccine emerged from a fortuitous discovery during an investigation of the role of the immune system in Alzheimer's. After the problems with the amyloid-beta vaccine, Weiner worked with postdoctoral fellow Dan Frenkel and Ruth Maron, assistant professor of neurology at BWH, to investigate the relationship between Alzheimer's and an overactive immune system that would produce encephalitis.

Alzheimer's vaccine looks promising

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:04:18 -0400

In 1993, Harvard researchers Dennis Selkoe and Howard Weiner got together over dinner to talk about how they might combine their expertise to find a better treatment for Alzheimer's, a disease that robs more than 4 million Americans of their cognition and personalities. Selkoe has spent much of his research career trying to understand how Alzheimer's destroys a person's brain. For the past 15 years, Weiner has been developing oral and nasal vaccines for diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes. They decided to fight Alzheimer's with the same protein that seems to cause it. Now they have successfully treated Alzheimer's disease in mice by putting drops of vaccine in their noses.

Genetic link discovered for late onset Alzheimer's

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:12:24 -0400

Although they have not yet identified the actual gene, researchers have evidence that a gene located on human chromosome 10 could be more potent than previous risk factors for late onset Alzheimer's disease. "I wouldn't be surprised if this turns out to be a bigger Alzheimer gene than APOE4," said Rudolph Tanzi, Harvard Medical School professor of neurology. He and his colleagues reported their findings in the Dec. 22, 2000, Science. With the paper were two others implicating the long arm of chromosome 10 as a likely hunting ground for a new late-onset Alzheimer's gene. Tanzi believes that the findings could help usher in a new era of Alzheimer's treatment in which people are genetically screened and then treated based on their constellation of predisposing genetic factors.