A promising new approach to potentially treat Alzheimer’s disease — and also vaccinate against it — has been developed by a team of UK and German scientists.
Both the antibody-based treatment and the protein-based vaccine developed by the team reduced Alzheimer’s symptoms in mouse models of the disease. The research is published today in Molecular Psychiatry.
The work is a collaboration between researchers at the University of Leicester, the University Medical Center Göttingen and the medical research charity LifeArc.
Rather than focus on the amyloid beta protein in plaques in the brain, which are commonly associated with Alzheimer’s disease, the antibody and vaccine both target a different soluble — form of the protein, that is thought to be highly toxic. Amyloid beta protein naturally exists as highly flexible, string-like molecules in solution, which can join together to form…
