International team focuses on Alzheimer's proteins

Healthcare News
22/10/2008
Research team receives $1 million grant to study Alzheimer's disease.

An international team of scientists is aiming to develop treatments which may one day prevent or even reverse the effects of Alzheimer's disease.

The scientists, led by Dr Donald Weaver and his colleagues at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, have been awarded a $1 million (£610,000) grant and intend to focus on how best to target the build-up of plaques associated with the disease.

Key to stopping the disease in its tracks, they believe, may be to halt the accumulation of both beta amyloid and tau proteins before they begin to affect the brain's nerve cells.

"Disrupting beta amyloid misfolding may work for some people, but not others. The same is probably true for tau," says Dr Weaver.

"If we could control both proteins in the same patient, we might get a synergistic benefit."

Meanwhile six universities in Scotland have entered into a research collaboration to investigate brain conditions, including Alzheimer's disease.

Under the £40 million link-up, the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, St Andrews and Stirling will share technology, with the aim of progressing treatments.

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