US research into Alzheimer's breaking new ground

Researchers and laboratories are calling for the US to boost funding for research into Alzheimer's disease, saying they are on the brink of a breakthrough to beat the debilitating brain disorder.

"Therapeutically ... we can now realistically expect to slow or halt the disease process," said Washington neurology professor Paul Aisen.

"We are close enough to be confident of success in the development of breakthrough therapies. How fast we get there, whether it will take a few years or fifteen depends on the resources brought to bear."
Researchers believe that at least three genes are responsible for triggering an overproduction of a neural membrane protein which degrades and turns into a peptide, invading and attacking the brain cells.

This amyloid peptide, as it is known, has now been identified thanks to scientific advances as the molecular cause of Alzheimer's.

"We have confidence that treatments that successfully reduce the accumulation of the amyloid peptide in human brain will slow or stop this disease," Aisen told a hearing of a Senate sub-committee this week.

The Alzheimer's Association of America is pressing the US government to step up its funding of research into the disease, warning that with the aging of the population Alzheimer's is set to be a major drain on health resources and insurance companies.

Some 500,000 new cases of Alzheimer's are diagnosed every year in the United States, but with the first of the country's 78 million baby boomers due to start turning 65 in 2011 -- the age when Alzheimer's typically sets in -- the figures could rise dramatically.

By 2030 there could be eight million Alzheimer's sufferers in the US, compared with five million today, warned the association's vice-president Stephen McConnell.

Global estimates paint an even more alarming picture, with the numbers set to rise from 24 million sufferers today to 42 million in 2020 and 81 million in 2040.

In a bid to fight the degenerative disease for which there is no cure, the US government already pumps some 650 million dollars into Alzheimer's research and the association adds nearly another 200 million.

But McConnell warned federal funding was going down in real terms because of the inflating cost of medical research.

"So the American Alzheimer Association is pressing the federal government to increase that commitment to more than a billion dollars annually as quickly as possible," he said.

Pharmaceutical companies are also pouring funds into developing treatments for the disease which could reap rich benefits.

"I think the most exciting part of this research is the work we are doing on compounds that show the potential to delay, halt or reverse the progression of the disease, or even prevent it," Robert Essner, chief executive of Wyeth laboratories, told the subcommittee.

His company has spent 450 million dollars on Alzheimer's research in the past five years, some 125 million in 2006 alone.

"Nearly 3,000 of our scientists are or have been involved in this work, and over 350 are focused exclusively on it," Essner added.

Aisen lauded the current progress in research saying: "We have the tools to develop effective anti-amyloid treatments ... the result is that numerous promising therapies are reaching the stage of clinical testing."