DailyTech - MPL Vaccine Could Treat, Prevent Alzheimer's Disease in Humans

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Science MPL Vaccine Could Treat, Prevent Alzheimer's Disease in Humans
Tiffany Kaiser - January 16, 2013 10:32 AM

22 comment(s) - last by michael2k.. on Jan 17 at 6:24 PM

The weekly injection removed 80 percent of senile plaques that cause Alzheimer's

Canadian researchers have come one giant step closer to finding treatment for those with Alzheimer's disease, and even a preventative vaccine.

The team of researchers hail from Université Laval, CHU de Québec, and pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), and was led by Dr. Serge Rivest, professor at Université Laval's Faculty of Medicine and researcher at the CHU de Québec research center.

A key part of Alzheimer's disease is the production of a toxic molecule called amyloid beta. The body's defenders, called microglial cells, cannot eliminate amyloid beta, and that's when senile plaques are formed.

But the new study gives the brain's immune cells a boost through monophosphoryl lipid A, called MPL, which is a vaccine that has already been proven safe through its use with GSK.

After giving mice with Alzheimer's symptoms weekly injections of MPL for 12 weeks, about 80 percent of senile plaques were eliminated. Also, the mice showed improvement in cognitive function.

According to the team, the MPL injection could not only slow the progression of the disease in patients already showing symptoms, but also be used as a preventative vaccine for those at risk.

Last September, the cancer drugs erlotinib (Tarceva) and gefitinib (Iressa) were used to cure Alzheimer's in fruit flies and rats.

Source: Science Daily

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RE: Sign Me Up!

By owsharp on 1/17/2013 1:22:08 PM , Rating: 2

FYI, forwarded this article to a PhD researcher friend whose focus is on Alzheimers. She says its been fairly exciting news to researchers for awhile, but no one thinks this is likely to actually be a cure. The treatments are effective on a particular model of Alzheimers that some people think isn't very accurate of human Alzheimers. More importantly, the treatment induces an inflammatory reaction that most likely would result in it being too dangerous to ever be approved as a human treatment :(

In my friend's words, though, "But who knows!"

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