Genentech possibly finds clue to Alzheimer’s cure

San Francisco, February 19: U.S. researchers seem to have discovered a new mechanism which may lead to development of promising treatments for the fatal disease called Alzheimer's.

Researchers at biotechnology giant Genentech of South San Francisco and the Salk Institute of La Jolla believe, a chemical mechanism that trims the unneeded neurons in early brain development results in triggering the Alzheimer’s disease at a later stage in life.

“The key player we're focusing on is a protein called APP,” stated Genentech's executive vice president for drug discovery and a co-author on the paper, published in the journal Nature.

A mysterious protein, APP (amyloid-producing protein), that has been linked to Alzheimer’s, is instrumental in creating amyloid clumps that accumulate in the brains of patients suffering from the disease. The scientists believe these amyloid plaques trigger the disease process and result in brain cell death and dementia.

“We've known for a long time that APP is a bad actor when it comes to Alzheimer's disease, but understanding why APP is in the brain in the first place opens up a whole new way to attack Alzheimer's,” stated Tessier-Lavigne.

“This shows a different way of thinking how a key player might be involved in the disease,” said Marc Tessier-Lavigne

The findings, if confirmed, can eventually lead to a revolutionary breakthrough about new treatment options for the disease that results in memory loss, confusion and the inability to care for oneself.
At present, there is no cure for Alzheimer’s and the drugs available merely delay the symptoms.

Most of the drug researches had focused on first component of APP. However, according to the study published in prestigious scientific journal Nature, a second molecule split off from APP, named N-APP, was found to trigger a chain of events that eventually destroys neurons.

“Now, instead of having one dog in the race, there are two,” said Paul Greengard, a professor at the Rockefeller University in New York. “It's a very exciting paper. It's going to have a major impact on research in the Alzheimer's field,” said Greengard, who was conferred with the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine in 2000 for his work on nerve cell communication.

Experts agree to the fact that the latest breakthrough is likely to open up new avenues of research to battle the devastating neurodegenerative illness.

Donald Nicholson, an expert in cell death pathways and vice president of basic research at Merck, feels that effective therapies might need to block both the neurotoxic effect of the amyloid beta peptide and the destruction wreaked by the N fragment. “The question is, how much of the neurodegeneration is triggered by the amyloid beta peptide and how much by N-APP?” Nicholson stated.

Amid continuing controversies over whether or not amyloid is the cause behind Alzheimer’s, quite a few companies including Merck, Genentech and Wyeth have been working for new amlyoid-busting drugs. The results, however, have been mixed, so far.

For the researchers at Genentech, the world's largest and undoubtedly the most successful biotech company in the world, the quest is to find if they can disrupt this mechanism in adult brain cells.

“The key question is, if we interfere with it, can we halt the progression of the disease?” Tessier-Lavigne said.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, the disease affects nearly 26 million across the world and about 5.2 million people in the United States.