Deriving an Anti-Amyloid Drug from Phage Biochemistry

This article covers the lengthy process of turning a serendipitous discovery, that a particular phage can dissolve the amyloids and other aggregates involved in neurodegenerative conditions, into a drug candidate. It demonstrates well why medical development takes a long time, more than a decade so far in this case even prior to entering the regulatory process. Each step in the process can take years to work through, funding is ever a problem, and there are frequent delays and dead ends. In 2004, researchers were running an experiment on a group of mice that had been genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer's disease plaques in their brains. They wanted to see if human-made antibodies delivered through the animals' nasal passages would penetrate the blood-brain barrier and dissolve the amyloid-beta plaques in their brains. Seeking a way to get more antibodies into the brain, she decided to attach them to M13 phages in the hope that the two acting in concert would better penetrate the blood-brain barrier. As a scientific control, one group received the plain phage M13. Because M13 cannot infect any organism except E. coli, it was expected that the control group of mice would get absolutely no benefit from the phage. But, surprisingly, the phage by itself proved highly effective at dissolving amyloid-beta plaques and in laboratory tests improved the cognition and sense of smell of the mice. In 2007, with $150,000 in seed money, a new venture, NeuroPhage Pharmaceuticals, wa...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs