Wise Young
09-29-2001, 11:20 PM
Immunization for Alzheimer's disease: yet closer to clinical trials [Journal Club]
David Gurwitz
Trends in Molecular Medicine, 2001, 7:9:385
Abstract
There is no abstract for this article. The text below is the first paragraph of text within the article.
1998 marked the bicentennial for the publication of Edward Jenner's first manuscript on successful immunization against smallpox - a manuscript that changed modern medicine forever and the course of human history. It is amazing to think that more than two hundred years had to pass until the potential of the concept of immunization would begin to be realized for non-infectious diseases. Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most widespread and one of the most devastating neurological disorders, remains without effective cure. The culprit of AD is -amyloid (A), a fibrillar 40-42 amino-acid peptide accumulating in the brains of AD patients and eliciting neuronal cell death. The past two years has witnessed a flood of papers, following the pioneering work of Dale Schenk and his colleagues from Elan Pharmaceuticals (Dublin, Ireland), and addressing the potential of immunization with A itself for slowing amyloid deposition in animal AD models. The logic behind this scheme is that immunization will stimulate the immune system to fight the abnormal pathologies associated with A and thereby accelerate removal of the amyloid plaques. However, concern has been raised that immunization of AD patients with A might initially accelerate the brain's amyloid deposition process, as the peptide crosses the blood-brain barrier and could seed further fibril formation and further neuronal death. Even without this extra risk, the notion of immunization with a toxic peptide does not sound very attractive.
David Gurwitz
Trends in Molecular Medicine, 2001, 7:9:385
Abstract
There is no abstract for this article. The text below is the first paragraph of text within the article.
1998 marked the bicentennial for the publication of Edward Jenner's first manuscript on successful immunization against smallpox - a manuscript that changed modern medicine forever and the course of human history. It is amazing to think that more than two hundred years had to pass until the potential of the concept of immunization would begin to be realized for non-infectious diseases. Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most widespread and one of the most devastating neurological disorders, remains without effective cure. The culprit of AD is -amyloid (A), a fibrillar 40-42 amino-acid peptide accumulating in the brains of AD patients and eliciting neuronal cell death. The past two years has witnessed a flood of papers, following the pioneering work of Dale Schenk and his colleagues from Elan Pharmaceuticals (Dublin, Ireland), and addressing the potential of immunization with A itself for slowing amyloid deposition in animal AD models. The logic behind this scheme is that immunization will stimulate the immune system to fight the abnormal pathologies associated with A and thereby accelerate removal of the amyloid plaques. However, concern has been raised that immunization of AD patients with A might initially accelerate the brain's amyloid deposition process, as the peptide crosses the blood-brain barrier and could seed further fibril formation and further neuronal death. Even without this extra risk, the notion of immunization with a toxic peptide does not sound very attractive.