Alzheimer's disease: A new small molecule approach to treatment
Monday, April 13, 2009 - 17:07
in Health & Medicine
New therapeutic approaches in Alzheimer's disease are urgently needed. Work led by Professor Mark Pepys FRS over more than 20 years has identified a protein known as serum amyloid P component (SAP) as a possible therapeutic target in Alzheimer's disease. In collaboration with Roche he developed a new small molecule drug, CPHPC, which specifically targets SAP and removes it from the blood. In the exciting new work reported now in the PNAS, the Pepys team together with Professor Martin Rossor and colleagues from the Dementia Research Centre of UCL's Institute of Neurology, have shown that the drug also removes SAP from the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease.