New drug moves on mice and Alzheimer’s
A breakthrough by Melbourne scientists which has cured Alzheimer’s Disease in mice has gone beyond the previous limited success in such experiments and completely cured the disease with signs of improvement within six days.
Lead author Ashley Bush said in a paper published in the science journal Neuron that “we can cure these mice. We can make them completely cognitively normal, and we can do it very rapidly”.
The drug named PBT2 worked by detoxifying a protein in the brain of zinc and copper and caused the protein itself – beta-amyloid – to rapidly disperse. The researchers induced Alzheimer’s in the mice by giving them the gene that causes the inherited form in humans.
Professor Bush said that “there have been some attempts over recent years that have been unsuccessful but they certainly didn’t have as prominent effects in mice as we’ve had. Our drug sort of sets the bar as far as potency is concerned”, he told The Age newspaper.
Early testing in humans had found no adverse side effects and results from the clinical trials are due to be published soon. But Professor Bush said that further research would be carried out and it could be up to three years before the drug came on the market.
