Science Makes Strides Toward Alzheimer's Cure

Significant breakthroughs may come in next decade, experts say.

A new element has emerged in the seemingly never-ending battle against Alzheimer's disease: hope.

While no one presented a breakthrough along the lines of a Salk vaccine, many of the professionals who attended the ninth international conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Philadelphia this past summer predicted a viable treatment within the next 10 years.

"Our goal of delaying the disabling symptoms and eventually preventing Alzheimer's is a feasible objective that we now believe the research community can achieve in the next decade," Sheldon Goldberg, the association's CEO, said.

And Shane S. Bush, a psychologist who is president of the neuropsychology division of the New York State Psychological Association, said that finding a treatment for the debilitating memory-affecting disease probably would not come all at once. "Many of the researchers and health-care providers I spoke to were excited to see our understanding of Alzheimer's disease continue to grow piece by piece," he said.

An estimated 4.5 million Americans now have Alzheimer's disease, with millions more in the Baby Boomer generation about to enter the age of greatest risk for the disease - after 65. Without a cure, the Alzheimer's Association estimates, between 11 million and 16 million Americans will have Alzheimer's disease by 2050.

Dr. Sam Gandy, vice chair of the National Medical and Scientific Advisory Council of the Alzheimer's Association and director of the Farber Institute for Neurology at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, agrees the next five to 10 years are likely to bring significant advances in both diagnosis and treatment of this presently irreversible condition.

Gandy is among the researchers who see the key to Alzheimer's may lie with the diagnosis and treatment of plaques and other abnormal protein aggregates called "tangles" in the brain, which many scientists think might be the hallmarks of Alzheimer's. The main component of plaques, a toxic protein fragment called beta-amyloid, is a primary suspect in the death of brain cells, which causes the mental deterioration that marks the condition.

He cites a breakthrough by Dr. William E. Klunk and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh. They recently developed a compound known as Pittsburgh Compound-B (PIB) that sticks to amyloid plaques and makes them visible on positron emission tomography (PET) scans for the first time. According to Gandy, the ability to finally view, monitor and measure amyloid probably heralds the beginning of a new chapter in Alzheimer's research.

"Combined with advances in medications to rid the brain of amyloid plaques, this could very well result in a major breakthrough in our understanding of and successful treatment of Alzheimer's," Gandy said. "It will not only answer questions about how amyloid damages brain cells, but it will help us monitor whether and how well the new medications work."