amyloid plaque news from FierceBioResearcher

A group of Yale University researchers theorized that genetic engineering used to block an immune response in cells outside the brain would accelerate the progress of Alzheimer's disease by spurring Read more...

A researcher at Purdue University laboratory is working on a compound that he says could become the first treatment available for Alzheimer's. Arun Ghosh says the molecule targets an enzyme called memapsin 2, or beta-secretase, which plays a key role in the formation of beta amyloid plaque that is widely believed to be responsible for the disease. Ghosh used X-ray crystallography to map the structure of an inhibitor he designed that was bound to the enzyme. Ghosh formed a company with …

Read more...

France's ExonHit Therapeutics says it could have a diagnostic test that can identify Alzheimer's. The disease has been notoriously difficult to diagnose at an early stage. But ExonHit says a panel of 60 biomarkers that can be detected in the blood can possibly be used to create the first such test. Researchers studied the diagnostic test in a trial involving 51 people with Alzheimer's and 34 who did not. The panel of genes was able to identify 78 percent of the patients with the disease …

Read more...

In a new study, researchers used a patch to deliver an Alzheimer's vaccine to mice that spurred their immune systems to recognize beta amyloid protein and destroy it. That protein is linked to the formation of beta amyloid plaque in the brain that characterizes the memory-wasting disease. The researchers say that the decision to deliver the vaccine transdermally could help avoid incidences of inflammation and death in a study involving an injected vaccine. If a follow-up study finds that …

Read more...