BrainBlog

Read the In The Pipeline blog entry (06 December 2011).

New pharmacological strategies for treatment of Alzheimer's disease: focus on disease-modifying drugs British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. 2011 Oct 28; Salomone S, Caraci F, Leggio GM, Fedotova J, Drago F Abstract Current approved drug treatments for Alzheimer disease (AD) include cholinesterase inhibitors (donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine) and the NMDA receptor antagonist memantine. These drugs provide symptomatic relief but poorly affect the progression of the disease. Drug discovery has been directed, in the last ten years, to develop "disease-modifying drugs" hopefully able to counteract the progression of AD. Because in a chronic, slow progressing pathological process, such as AD, an early start of treatment enhances the chance of success, it is crucial to have biomarkers for early detection of AD-related brain dysfunction, usable before clinical onset. Reliable early biomarkers need therefore to be prospectively tested for predictive accuracy, with specifi...

From EurekaAlert: UCSF-Pfizer partnership yields projects aimed at clinical trials 26 October 2011 Read the full article

Today's recommended article to read; abstract from PubMed : Bergmans BA & De Strooper B. gamma-secretases: From cell biology to therapeutic strategies. Lancet Neurology . 2010 Feb; 9(2 ): 215-226. Department of Molecular and Developmental Genetics, VIB, Leuven, Belgium; Center for Human Genetics , Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. Presenilins form the catalytic part of the gamma-secretases , protein complexes that are responsible for the intramembranous cleavage of transmembrane proteins. The presenilins are involved in several biological functions, but are best known for their role in the generation of the beta-amyloid (Abeta) peptide in Alzheimer's disease and are therefore thought to be important drug targets for this disorder. Mutations in the presenilin genes cause early-onset familial Alzheimer's disease, but mutation carriers have substantial phenotypic heterogeneity. Recent evidence implicating presenilin mutations in non-Alzheimer's dementia...

From Fierce Biotech : UCSF enters drug discovery agreement with Genentech Posted February 19, 2010 "The University of California, San Francisco has signed a partnership agreement with Genentech, Inc., a wholly owned member of the Roche Group, to discover and develop drug candidates for neurodegenerative diseases. "Through the agreement, Genentech will provide funding and its research acumen in neuroscience and will collaborate with UCSF to identify small molecules." Read the full article