Progress against brain plaques by researchers may be able to help treat patients with Alzheimer’s disease as an experimental drug was able to reduce the amount of toxic plaque in patients’ brains.
Progress against brain plaques may be a gigantic breakthrough
In a report published in the journal Nature, researchers from biotech company Biogen, show that an experimental drug that goes by the name aducanumab,was able to dramatically drop the amounts of toxic plaque in the brain of several Alzheimer’s patients.
A small number of patients received high doses of the experimental drug, with even more promising results that it may also slow down memory loss and cognitive abilities.
Dr. Eric Reiman, executive director of the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, points out that this development could be a ‘game-changer’ in Alzheimer’s disease research.
Reiman also suggests that since the test results were only from a handful of patients, he is looking forward to having more trials to make conclusive evidence that aducanumab would actually be effective against slowing down the effects of Alzheimer’s disease.
Promising future for Alzheimer’s patients
Biogen officials claim that the research into aducanumab involved some 165 patients diagnosed with the condition, expressed their caution about their interpretation of the test results.
“We think we have something important here,” says Dr. Alfred Sandrock, chief medical officer for Biogen. “We hope we’re right because if it’s true it would benefit millions of patients. But we don’t know we’re right yet.”
The medical community expressed elation over this recent discovery, pointing out that billions of dollars have been spent on many research to find a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease to no avail, until now.
It was only very recently that Biogen started to present the results of their ongoing study with aducanumab and have been touching base with different medical groups, including the recent gathering for the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.
Ongoing studies
Biogen is currently involved in two large-scale studies focusing on aducanumab with test participants of around 2700 patients, for which the results are still expected to be analyzed in several years.
One of the most striking feature of aducanumab is the ability to ignore benign amyloid proteins and attack only the toxic ones responsible for brain tissue damage.
It was also found to enhance the ability of healthy immune cells into devouring toxins that include amyloid.
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