Daily Post; Liverpool - August 06, 2004
AN EXPERIMENTAL vaccine has raised hopes of developing the first cure for Alzheimer’s disease, scientists revealed yesterday.
The immune therapy, which so far has only been tried on mice, clears away plaques and "tangles" of protein that clog up and destroy the brain.
One theory about the cause of Alzheimer’s says that protein clumps called beta amyloid plaques give rise to fibrous tangles that kill brain cells involved in memory and learning.
Researchers led by Dr Frank La Ferla at the University of California at Irvine (UCI), studied mice genetically engineered to suffer a form of Alzheimer’s.
Antibodies were injected into the animals that target the Ab peptide protein building block from which amyloid plaques are made.
The scientists found that the Ab antibodies cleared away the peptide both outside and inside brain cells.
