Searching for the Alzheimer's key
(hereditary and very early onset Alzheimer's)
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Early-onset Alzheimer's has stalked a poor extended family in Medellin, Colombia. The family carries a dominant gene that means that half are at risk. The disease strikes family members as young as 25 and by their 40s sufferers are in the grip of full-blown dementia. Alzheimer's is by and large a disease of the developed world, if for no other reason than that people in the developing world don't live long enough to suffer from it. Now by using the Colombian family to trial new drugs, researchers say they may be on the road to a global cure for Alzheimer's. Bill Law asks if this represents an unfair exploitation of desperate people - many of them barely literate - to benefit those in the West? Or is it a case of bringing hope to those in a hopeless situation?
The Banner Institute scientists will test drugs on the family which are designed to attack a neural plaque that builds up on the brains of all Alzheimer's sufferers. The sticky, chewing gum-like plaque is caused by a malfunction which causes the misproduction of a starch-like protein called amyloid.
The Colombian family present researchers with the chance to work with healthy people before they develop dementia.The hope is that by using experimental drugs, growth of this amyloid plaque will be inhibited before the illness strikes.
Using lumbar punctures, brain scans and other techniques, they will monitor and measure those on the drugs and those receiving a placebo.
The hope is that with funding in place, the trials can begin in late 2012.
If in the extended family the onset of Alzheimer's is delayed, or stopped, then the researchers will have hit the mother lode - a potential cure for sufferers worldwide. That remains a big if.
No-one yet knows if amyloid plaque is the cause or an effect of Alzheimer's. As Joseph Arboleda, a Harvard-based researcher working with Dr Lopera says, the trial puts this hypothesis to the test.
It is possible that drugs will inhibit the brain plaque and yet the family will still get dementia. Such results would prove devastating for current research. Continue to read: bbc.co.uk & bbc.co.uk
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