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The amyloid hypothesis is the theory that the accumulation of beta-amyloids in the brain leads to Alzheimer's Disease. These amyloids are "sticky" protein fragments, and the idea is that something in the body that normally regulates them fails and they accumulate in the brain. The idea was proposed in the early 1990s when it was observed that many Alzheimer's patients exhibited larger than normal amounts of amyloid plaques. This hypothesis has driven a very active area of research for drugs and treatments that address beta-amyloids.
In what some see as a fundamental blow to the hypothesis itself, it was recently announced that one of the leading drugs, solanezumab from Eli Lilly, has failed in a large trial of people with mild dementia. The clinical trial involved more than 2,100 people diagnosed with mild dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease, but the results showed only a small benefit of the drug. Eli Lilly has also been conducting prevention trials where the drug is given to people known genetically to be high-risk for the disease, and they said they will discuss with their clinical trial partners whether they will continue those studies.
Lilly’s result may say more about the characteristics of solanezumab than the accuracy of the underlying amyloid hypothesis, says Christian Haass, head of the Munich branch of the German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases. The antibody targets soluble forms of amyloid, he points out, so it “could be trapped in the blood without ever reaching the actual target in the brain in sufficient quantities”.
The appeal of the amyloid hypothesis is that it is a simple one. However, in the 25 years since it was proposed, it has led to essentially no progress in preventing or curing the disease. Criticism of the theory has grown with each failed result.
“We’re flogging a dead horse,” adds Peter Davies, an Alzheimer’s researcher at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, New York. “There’s no sign of anybody getting better, even for a short period, and that suggests to me that you have the wrong mechanism.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 28 2016, @06:08PM
The best thing that can happen to most people who get involved (ie creative, inquisitive) is to get out of academic biomed research. It is all politics and gaming metrics at this point. Industry is better but moving the same direction since meeting FDA arbitrary metrics is more important than actually figuring out what is going on or whether some treatment "works".
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday November 29 2016, @05:54AM
That sounds an awful lot like picking your own poison.
Ultimately, they both suck and if you don't deliver results you'll have issues with funding. Unfortunately, that means positive results, there's few corporations like Edison's back in the day where you can try thousands of times without success before giving up. Granted, the lightbulb is a rather extreme example and had an extremely obvious application, but I doubt you'd get away with even a fraction of that many tries these days.