New drug turns Alzheimer's theory on its head
22 July 2009
An antihistamine that improves Alzheimer's symptoms has raised questions about our understanding of the disease
Posted on 10/15/2009 12:40:26 AM PDT by neverdem
A diagnostic compound that allows researchers to look into the brains of Alzheimer's patients will be used for the first time to gauge the effects of an experimental therapy for the disease.
Called florbetaben, the diagnostic could also provide important insights into the role of beta amyloid, a protein that accumulates into plaques in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease and has been shown to be toxic to nerve cells.
The compound is an 18F-radiolabelled tracer that binds specifically to deposits of beta amyloid, and can be measured using positron emission tomography (PET), a nuclear imaging technique which produces a three-dimensional image of functional processes in the body.
In living patients, diagnosis of Alzheimer's currently relies on a mix of cognitive testing and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computed tomography (CT) scans to exclude other forms of dementia, but is only 70 to 80 per cent reliable.
'MRI and CT only allow for the imaging of anatomic compositions of the body, such as organs,' a spokesperson for Bayer Schering Pharma, the company behind the development of florbetaben, told Chemistry World. 'More recently, PET scans are increasingly being read alongside CT or MRI to allow anatomic and structural or molecular information to be gathered at the same time.'
A definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer's relies on the presence of beta amyloid plaques and other hallmarks of the disease in brain tissue samples examined under the microscope.
'A safe diagnosis of [Alzheimer's] is currently only possible post-mortem,' the spokesperson commented.
Data presented earlier this year from a Phase II trial suggested florbetaben could be used to differentiate people with Alzheimer's from healthy volunteers of the same age.
In the latest study, florbetaben will be used to see whether a vaccine developed by Swiss company AC Immune, designed to stimulate the immune system to break down amyloid plaques in the brain, is having the expected effect.
The vaccine has already shown it can reduce plaque size and improve memory in animal models of Alzheimer's disease, according to Dr. Andrea Pfeifer, AC Immune's chief executive.
'Visualising the deposition of beta amyloid that is targeted by our vaccine can be an important parameter for dose selection, and will provide useful complementary data,' she says, adding that developing diagnostics alongside therapeutics is an emerging trend in the pharmaceutical sector.
Meanwhile, florbetaben could also be useful in establishing once and for all the role of beta amyloid in Alzheimer's disease.
In September, Chemistry World reported the results of a study which found that a compound called dimebolin had a beneficial effect on Alzheimer's symptoms, despite increasing levels of beta amyloid. That prompted suggestions that other forms of the protein, such as soluble amyloid oligomers, may be more neurotoxic than plaques.
It may be too soon to reject the prevailing 'amyloid hypothesis', but tools like florbetaben could be invaluable in establishing the role of the protein once and for all.
'A good diagnostic assay should help to evaluate the effect of new treatments in clinical trials better, as well as improve correlation of results with existing pathological and memory markers,' commented the spokesperson.
Ping
Fascinating.
Both of my parents have “old-timer’s” disease, so I’m hoping I don’t get it and start voting Democratic.
‘florbetaben’
What you get when you let Mush Mouth name the drug.
Bump.
Neverdem has posted a topic discussing new research avenues in Alzheimer's Disease.
Bayer has completed stage 2 trials of the drug florbetaben that works as a marker for beta amyloids in the brain, potentially allowing for a new diagnostic treatment that can be performed while the patient is still alive. Of which I am in favor.
Research in an antihistamine that improves Alzheimer's symptoms, a metal chelation therapy that traps copper ions and research into the different types of amyloids for toxicity round out as fantastic post.
*****************************************
The Folding@home team at Stanford University has a couple of updates.
First, the servers will be replaced over the next month or so by a new class of servers EACH having 48 TB of storage. This will help out greatly in keeping work units available.
Second, software upgrades to the core software is planned. Work on the GPU3 project promises speed increases on the high end video cards that some use, a new technique to speed up all cores called Normal Mode Langevin (NML) Dynamics is heading to beta, and work is progressing to allow for “simple” SMP cores in Windows and other systems.
Last, I wont to highlight some of the milestones that folders have hit in the last few weeks:
SazanEyes just hit 10,000,000 points
Klutz Dohanger is back and over 9,000,000 points
NAPA_Laurel and mouser both hit 2,000,000 points this week
Onelife hit 1,000,000 points last week
mschalock, LonePalm and HangThemHigh are all over 800,000 points
sshultz460 just hit 300,000 points
jdowntown is a new folder who has hit 40,000 points
Congrats to all, especially our new folders.
**************************************************
Current versions of clients:
Windows console and system tray: 6.23
Mac OS X: 6.26.3
Linux: 6.02 with a beta for 6.24
Playstation 3: 1.3.1
Thanks to one and all for folding!
For more information on Folding@home and how you can help save lives and advance research, please lookie here:
Neverdem has posted a topic discussing new research avenues in Alzheimer's Disease.
Bayer has completed stage 2 trials of the drug florbetaben that works as a marker for beta amyloids in the brain, potentially allowing for a new diagnostic treatment that can be performed while the patient is still alive. Of which I am in favor.
Research in an antihistamine that improves Alzheimer's symptoms, a metal chelation therapy that traps copper ions and research into the different types of amyloids for toxicity round out as fantastic post.
*****************************************
The Folding@home team at Stanford University has a couple of updates.
First, the servers will be replaced over the next month or so by a new class of servers EACH having 48 TB of storage. This will help out greatly in keeping work units available.
Second, software upgrades to the core software is planned. Work on the GPU3 project promises speed increases on the high end video cards that some use, a new technique to speed up all cores called Normal Mode Langevin (NML) Dynamics is heading to beta, and work is progressing to allow for “simple” SMP cores in Windows and other systems.
Last, I wont to highlight some of the milestones that folders have hit in the last few weeks:
SazanEyes just hit 10,000,000 points
Klutz Dohanger is back and over 9,000,000 points
NAPA_Laurel and mouser both hit 2,000,000 points this week
Onelife hit 1,000,000 points last week
mschalock, LonePalm and HangThemHigh are all over 800,000 points
sshultz460 just hit 300,000 points
jdowntown is a new folder who has hit 40,000 points
Congrats to all, especially our new folders.
**************************************************
Current versions of clients:
Windows console and system tray: 6.23
Mac OS X: 6.26.3
Linux: 6.02 with a beta for 6.24
Playstation 3: 1.3.1
Thanks to one and all for folding!
For more information on Folding@home and how you can help save lives and advance research, please lookie here:
BTTT
BTTT
He must be cheating...that is INSANE! Did he hack Deep Blue and use it for folding?
I think that he only has 8 total computers working for us, but with the new graphics cards each of them will output 4000 - 8000 ppd.
I did a small version of it when I added a $100 NVidia card to one of my systems. Accounts for about half of my points daily.
I also have two SMPs running (each over 1000 ppd - One of those same nVidia machines with a quad processor and a 2 Core 2 Duo notebook.)
Core 2 Duo notebook!
Thanks for riding herd on this; good to be apprised of progress arising out of it.
I’m scheduled hit half a million sometime around Thanksgiving.
Haven’t nosed about the forums recently; still hoping for a graphical client that plays well in the sandbox with OpenGL. Meanwhile, console clients continue apace.
But, someone else would just vote Democrat for you.
Not neccessary. He can still vote Democrat after death.
Yeah, I would just become an ACORN-registered Democratic voter if I stopped living.
http://protomol.sourceforge.net/
and it may help. F@H is rewriting their internal code to be more extensible and to play better with others.
ProtoMol implementation is one of their big projects and is supposed to help pass older M$ standards and greatly boost computation.
ProtoMol looks really good. Any timeline on an F@H implementation?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.