GALVESTON, Texas – The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston has made a groundbreaking discovery that could lead to the ultimate end of Alzheimer’s disease.
“Basically, when it comes to Alzheimer’s, there are two methodological hallmark or people who get Alzheimer’s,” said Dr. Rakez Kayed, lead author and professor at the Department of Neurology at UTMB, “They have two different proteins that stick in their brain cells. One of them is called amyloid. And this is the first one which people develop therapeutics for it and the other is called tau. Tau protein is very important. Each one of us has it.”
You might be familiar with other pharmaceutical injections entering the market that attack amyloid plaque. Newer drugs are aiming to delay the progression of Alzheimer’s by targeting amyloid.
However, Dr. Kayed believes they fall short of eliminating the protein responsible for the progression of the disease and therefore his nasal spray aims to target Tau.
In early studies with mice, the team can prove the drug works.
“Once we deliver the drug to these animals, one time, within three weeks, these mice memory recovered... and their behavior, their walking or movement recovered. So that was how we know that the drug works in these mice,” Dr. Kayed said.
The good news is, by making the drug a nasal spray, they overcome another hurdle, of getting it to cross into the blood-brain barrier. Kayed said normally less than one percent of drugs penetrate the brain.
“Normally these drugs are administered intravenous, like you put the patient on an IV for hours to get some of the drug into the brain. So, our idea was from the nose to the brain is shorter or there is a passageway there. So, instead of developing it or administering it through the venous injections, we decided to try to do it through the nose,” Kayed said. “We found that within three hours the drug reached every part of the brain cells.”
He’s not stopping with Alzheimer’s disease.
He’s talking about this curing six different diseases.
“The goal is to cure at least six or seven of these aging diseases, which is Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, dementia with Lewy body,” Kayed said.
These illnesses, he said, are also caused by the tau protein.
“At least this is the common knowledge. So, we want to target in every one of them. This is why we develop not one drug. We developed six of them. This is the first. Hopefully the others will follow suit,” Kayed added.
When will it be available?
Dr. Kayed said optimistically this could get to the market in three years. If it gets held up along the way, it could take up to seven years. However, he says with certainty, his drug will be ready within the next decade.