Brain Implants Relieve Alzheimer's Damage

Genetically engineered cells implanted in mice have cleared away toxic plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease. The animals were sickened with a human gene that caused them to develop, at an accelerated rate, the disease that robs millions of elderly people of their memories. After receiving the doctored cells, the brain-muddling plaques melted away. If this works in humans, old age could be a much happier time of life.

Neprilysin

[wizardforce]

The Harvard team used skin cells from the animal's own body to introduce a gene for an amyloid-busting enzyme known as neprilysin. The skin cells, also known as fibroblasts, "do not form tumors or move from the implantation site," Hemming notes. "They cause no detectable adverse side effects and can easily be taken from a patient's skin." In addition, other genes can be added to the fibroblast-neprilysin combo, which will eliminate the implants if something starts to go wrong.

I suppose the simple genetic change isn't as likely to cause some immune reaction than the gene implanted via a virus- it should be a lot safer to just introduce cells with the gene instead of altering large sections of tissue in the human body. here's the enzyme they are talking about that is doing the good work:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neprilysin

Old age is not a happier time of life?

[ArtuRocks]

If this works in humans, old age could be a much happier time of life.

Ummm.... huh? Two problems I have with that sentence:
1.) Granted, I'm 34, so I'm not talking from experience, but from what I gather [webmd.com] old age is already a happier time of life.
2.) If I'm interpreting the sentence correctly, the sentence is implying that most of the time when people reach old age they get Alzheimer's. If that is true, then I need a reality check because I didn't know that.

Re:A couple big questions though...

[Anonymous Coward]

^^ Exactly. I work in a lab at Harvard studying mechanisms thought to be responsible for eliminating aggregates (such as those in AD) from the cell, and there's no evidence that this is where toxicity comes from. Shutting down these processes doesn't have any effect on the progression or lifespan of mice with ALS, Huntington's disease, or Prion infection. I'm still looking into AD and Parkinson's, but all signs point to no effect at the moment.

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Re:The bright side of alzheimers

[vidarh]

Seriously, if that's an attempt at a joke it's extremely tasteless.

Both my grandmothers have/had Alzheimers. The first couple of years they still recognized us, though their short term memory went within months and got to the point where at any visit you'd have to remind them who you were several times (then they'd still recognize us) and they'd ask the same questions over and over again and promptly forget the conversation.

But then, pretty soon they were unable to recognize anyone. Including their spouses who they'd lived with for decades; including their children.

Beyond that it took a couple of years before they eventually lost the ability to speak, and were sitting around just looking. We've been "lucky" - neither of them got aggressive. Aggression is a common effect of Alzheimers.

My paternal grandmother was in hospital for a couple of years with some level of memory, and then sat like a vegetable in a nursing home for about eight years before she died. She was unable to speak, and recognized noone during all of those eight years.

But the worst part is that when we found out they had Alzheimers, you could see the symptoms going back several years - suddenly lots of strange incidents made sense -, and they must have known something was badly wrong, but tried to hide it. Alzheimers scare the shit out of people and a lot of people getting it try to hide their memory loss as best they can because they're ashamed or scared until it gets so bad they can't function.

Frankly, if I get Alzheimers and there's still not a cure, I hope I realize early enough to kill myself.

Re:It's a great time to be a mouse...

[eam]

Not that it changes the situation that much, but they're actually talking about taking skin cells from the patient, genetically modifying them, then putting them back in the patient's skin. No brain surgery required, and if it works out badly the removal is probably easier than removing a wart.

Re:It's a great time to be a mouse...

[eam]

Of course, the web site got it wrong, too. The title says "Brain implants", but the article specifies skin implants.

See, it isn't only slashdot editors that screw up.

Of course, I'm assuming the editor of the Harvard University Gazette decided on the title for the article. It would be more disturbing if the author of the article didn't know enough about what he wrote to get the title right.