New research at Genentech provides a provocative theory about the cause of Alzheimer’s disease and suggests potential new targets for therapies to treat it, reports Ron Winslow in the February 19 issue of the Wall Street Journal.
The prevailing view about what causes Alzheimer’s disease is that deposits called beta amyloid accumulate in the brain, destroying nerve cells and ultimately, the patient’s memory. Now, new research shows there’s a very different way of looking at the disease.
The Genentech/Salk Institute team of researchers propose that a normal process in which excess nerve cells and nerve fibers are pruned from the brain during prenatal development is somehow reactivated in the adult brain and “hijacked” to cause the death of such cells in Alzheimer’s patients, writes Winslow.
According to Marc Tessier-Lavigne, executive vice president, research drug discovery at Genentech, the new findings offer evidence that “Alzheimer’s is not just bad luck, but rather it is the activation of a pathway that is there for development purposes.”
Genentech has identified potential drug candidates based on the findings and says that it may take many years for any potential treatment to be developed.
The research was published Thursday in the journal Nature.
NOTE: The photos of normal and dead nerve fibers above are from Dr. Tessier-Lavigne.
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