Success in reversing dementia in mice sets the stage for human clinical trials

Newswise — Researchers have identified a new treatment candidate that appears to not only halt neurodegenerative symptoms in mouse models of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, but also reverse the effects of the disorders.

The team, based at Tohoku University, published their results on June 8 in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. The treatment candidate has been declared safe by Japan’s governing board, and the researchers plan to begin clinical trials in humans in the next year.

“There are currently no disease-modifying therapeutics for neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Lewy body dementia, Huntington disease and frontotemporal dementia in the world,” said paper author Kohji Fukunaga, professor emeritus in Tohoku University’s Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences. “We discovered the novel, disease-modifying therapeutic candidate SAK3,…

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