WASHINGTON – Amyloid-beta has been the Alzheimer’s research darling for more than a decade, and finally, after many failures, some small successes may be appearing in antiamyloid trials.
Experts suggest that these encouraging early results may lead companies to retest failed drugs under new conditions – for example, by using patients who test positive for amyloid-beta on brain PET scans, who have prodromal disease, or who are asymptomatic.
But questions remain, and some are fundamental. The functional nature of amyloid remains unknown. There are still questions about which form is the most neurotoxic. Little is understood about the way it interacts with tau as symptoms emerge.
Will these lines of investigation fall to the wayside if companies and amyloid-centric researchers put too many eggs into the antiamyloid basket? Dr. Michael Wolfe, Ph.D., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, discusses these issues in an interview.
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