Nanoparticles to target Alzheimer’s disease
pharmafile | August 10, 2011 | News story | Research and Development | Alzheimer's, nanoparticles
Researchers at Lancaster University funded by the European Union are hoping to develop a new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
Nanoparticles for the therapy and diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease – the NAD project – has provided €14.6 million in funding and support from 18 research centres in Europe to develop a novel treatment.
In the UK, Professor David Allsop and his team at Lancaster University are creating small nanoparticles to cross the blood-brain barrier, in order to target amyloid plaques which accumulate in the brains of Alzheimer’s sufferers.
He says: “When the disease is diagnosed now, the damage is already done. Proteins accumulate in the brain as senile plaques or fibres which interfere with the normal function of nerve cells. We are developing treatments based on inhibiting the protein fibres from accumulating so Alzheimer’s could be treated much earlier.”
Allsop’s team are also looking into the potential of diagnosing Alzheimer’s before any memory loss symptoms begin to appear, and he added that a drug could be tested in humans within five to six years.
The most common form of dementia, Alzheimer’s remains impossible to cure. One in three people over 65 will die with dementia, and the disease affects 750,000 people in the UK alone.
To date many drugs targeting the disease have failed such as Lilly’s semagacestat, Myriad Genetics’ tarenflurbil and Neurochem’s Alzhemed.
Allsop believes they now have improved methods and adds: “Laboratory research is very promising and if the expectations of the research are realised, the results can be expected to have an enormous impact on the early diagnosis and treatment of this highly distressing disease.”
Alzheimer’s Research UK funded equipment worth £35,000 that will enable the detection of tiny amounts of Amyloid beta alongside other neurodegenerative markers, such as Parkinson’s and motor neurone disease.
The research at Lancaster is supported by further funding from the EU (Framework 7), The Medical Research Council, The George Barton Trust and Fisher Foundation.
Brett Wells
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