Sarasota’s Roskamp Institute Discovers New Class Of Drugs That Can Impact Alzheimer’s Disease

January 28, 2007 – 8:38 pm | posted in Alzheimers / Dementia, Mental Health, Seniors / Aging

The Roskamp Institute announced today the discovery of a new class of drugs that lower the production of the main pathological protein that causes Alzheimer’s disease. The discovery is detailed in an article co-authored by Drs. Daniel Paris and Michael Mullan and currently appears in Neuroscience Letters.

The Roskamp Institute, which is devoted to finding treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, has been researching drugs that have the potential to stop the production of B-amyloid.

“When B-amyloid builds up in humans, patients develop Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Michael Mullan, Director of the Roskamp Institute. “By stopping its production we can potentially stop the disease. We have found a whole family of drugs that can stop the production of B-amyloid, giving many companies working on NF-kB inhibitors the opportunity to test these types of drugs in Alzheimer’s.”

NF-kB (a protein that occurs in all cells in the body) activity results in inflammatory responses due to the switching on of genes that encode proteins that are key in inflammation. NF-kB inhibitors are being developed widely in the pharmaceutical industry primarily for its use in inflammatory conditions such as Arthritis and, until now, have not been thought of as a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s.

At the same time, many drug companies are searching for compounds that can lower or stop the production of B-amyloid. The finding that NF-kB controls B- amyloid production means that NF-kB inhibitors might be developed as anti- Alzheimer drugs. One such example is Celastrol, which is researched in the Roskamp Institute’s publication, and is available as a food supplement but has never been formally tested in Alzheimer’s.

“Although we have known about the important inflammatory role of NF-kB for a long time, we did not know that it controls B-amyloid production,” said Dr. Daniel Paris, Senior Scientist of the Roskamp Institute. “This may be one way that the inflammation caused by B-amyloid leads to more B-amyloid being produced — a positive feedback loop with awful consequences for the sufferer.”

The publication details the NF-kB findings and explains why this family of drugs should be tested for their use in treating Alzheimer’s disease patients.

For more information on the Roskamp Institute and to view the journal article in Neuroscience Letters, please visit us online at http://www.RoskampInstitute.com. The article can also be viewed directly at http://www.roskampinstitute.com/pdf/NF_kB_Publication.pdf.

Roskamp Institute
http://www.RoskampInstitute.com

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