Scientists in Japan Develop Experimental Alzheimer's Vaccine Showing Promise in Mice (gizmodo.com) 33
"Scientists in Japan may be at the start of a truly monumental accomplishment: a vaccine that can slow or delay the progression of Alzheimer's disease," reports Gizmodo:
In preliminary research released this week, the vaccine appeared to reduce inflammation and other important biomarkers in the brains of mice with Alzheimer's-like illness, while also improving their awareness.
More research will be needed before this vaccine can be tested in humans, however. The experimental vaccine is being developed primarily by scientists from Juntendo University in Japan.
It's intended to work by training the immune system to go after certain senescent cells, aging cells that no longer divide to make more of themselves, but instead stick around in the body. These cells aren't necessarily harmful, and some play a vital role in healing and other life functions. But they've also been linked to a variety of age-related diseases, including Alzheimer's. The vaccine specifically targets senescent cells that produce high levels of something called senescence-associated glycoprotein, or SAGP. Other research has suggested that people with Alzheimer's tend to have brains filled with these cells in particular.
The team tested their vaccine on mice bred to have brains that develop the same sort of gradual destruction seen in humans with Alzheimer's.
More research will be needed before this vaccine can be tested in humans, however. The experimental vaccine is being developed primarily by scientists from Juntendo University in Japan.
It's intended to work by training the immune system to go after certain senescent cells, aging cells that no longer divide to make more of themselves, but instead stick around in the body. These cells aren't necessarily harmful, and some play a vital role in healing and other life functions. But they've also been linked to a variety of age-related diseases, including Alzheimer's. The vaccine specifically targets senescent cells that produce high levels of something called senescence-associated glycoprotein, or SAGP. Other research has suggested that people with Alzheimer's tend to have brains filled with these cells in particular.
The team tested their vaccine on mice bred to have brains that develop the same sort of gradual destruction seen in humans with Alzheimer's.
Save Medicare (Score:5, Interesting)
I once had a US Congressman tell me that if I wanted to balance the federal budget, I should cure Alzheimer's. At the very least this would save Medicare a huge amount of money. A quick search says this one disease costs about $300B per year in the US. And the pain of watching a loved one's mind slip away is immeasurable.
Re: (Score:1)
We could use that money to reduce involuntary homeless by 10x, finding a cure for other diseases (by increasing the NIH budget 10x from current levels), or universal free drinks for all on Fridays etc.
Re: Save Medicare (Score:1)
What if your loved one is just a control in an experiment, does the thientific advanthe make it all better?
Re: (Score:1, Redundant)
A quick search says this one disease costs about $300B per year in the US
Which is why there will never be a "cure." To much money in treating.
repost to counter mod abuse.
$32T (Score:2)
All mice have Alzheimers (Score:5, Funny)
Mice are terrible at drawing clocks.
Re:All mice have Alzheimers (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Aging (Score:3, Interesting)
Destroy senescent cells and you may have cured Alzheimer's.
Prevent cells from becoming senescent in the first place and you'll have cured human aging as we understand it.
Is that technology decades-to-centuries away? Doesn't seem like it. We've inserted hTERT into cells' genomes and permanently prevented senescence. Of course, randomly dropping genetic code into the genome tends to break shit; what's viable at the cell level is not necessarily viable on the organismal level.
So for decades we thought: what if there was a way to temporarily give cells the message to produce enough hTERT to re-lengthen their telomeres?
Maybe just a few fake instructions to make the protein that didn't come from the DNA itself. Maybe... something like... ...an mRNA vaccine? You know, the kind we just gave to 60% or so of the entire human population?
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This is so "not even wrong" good God it's hard to even start a counterargument. Got any credible references for any of this BS? OK, by inserting hTERT, the idea is to increase the telomere lengths, and then what? Hope the cells replicate? That's like brain tumor territory. Neurons are typically terminally differentiated. You aren't supposed to prompt them into replication, all kinds of shit will go haywire. Not to mention nobody's even fake-shown Alzheimer's to be an issue with cell replication or telomeres
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Neurons are typically terminally differentiated. You aren't supposed to prompt them into replication, all kinds of shit will go haywire.
Careful there. Neurons in general replicate all the time; peripheral nerves regrow at a rate of about 1 mm per day. Only myelinated neurons don't replicate.
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Umm, no they do not. Here are some references that say literally the opposite .. the second reference ne even goes as far as saying AD is caused by neurons trying to replicate: https://www.frontiersin.org/ar... [frontiersin.org]
https://www.jneurosci.org/cont... [jneurosci.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Umm, no they do not. Here are some references that say literally the opposite .. the second reference ne even goes as far as saying AD is caused by neurons trying to replicate: https://www.frontiersin.org/ar... [frontiersin.org]
https://www.jneurosci.org/cont... [jneurosci.org]
No, they don't "literally say the opposite". You're conflating "neurons in the central nervous system" with "neurons". One is a subset of the other. CNS neurons are in your brain and spinal cord, and those don't (usually) repair axonal damage or exhibit cell division. Peripheral nerves are in the rest of your body, and most certainly *do* repair themselves, and rather quickly at that. Both are considered "neurons".
Further, what you're saying isn't actually correct even for nerves in the central nervous
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A miniscule percentage of neurons may replicate, it's not common and it's not the norm. Even your source qualifies it with "and can regrow under some conditions." WTF, that's a catch all weasel phrase. As for peripheral nerves, we were talking about the brain, this is related to Alzheimers so I wasn't talking about peripheral nerves . Although, you're wrong there too. I believe you are confusing peripheral nervous system neuron regeneration (which is rare) with peripheral neurons regenerating their axons (w
Re: (Score:2)
A miniscule percentage of neurons may replicate, it's not common and it's not the norm. Even your source qualifies it with "and can regrow under some conditions." WTF, that's a catch all weasel phrase. As for peripheral nerves, we were talking about the brain, this is related to Alzheimers so I wasn't talking about peripheral nerves . Although, you're wrong there too. I believe you are confusing peripheral nervous system neuron regeneration (which is rare) with peripheral neurons regenerating their axons (which is common).
Yes, it is entirely possible that the nerve regrowth in the PNS is entirely axonal extension. I'm probably remembering wrong. The fact that the CNS doesn't generally do that, however, can be problematic.
The neurons of the peripheral nervous system don't really regenerate much, it's their axons that regenerate. Even in that situation, we don't want to go immortalizing the cells with hTERT.
Bear in mind that I'm not the person you replied to originally. :-) I'm pretty sure hTERT wouldn't do much of anything (beneficial or otherwise). IIRC Telomeres only really play a role when DNA is copied. In a cell that doesn't go through mitosis, the DNA isn't copied, with the weird exception of nerve
Re: Aging (Score:1)
How could I want to live knowing that thousands of unwilling mice were tortured and even more will be tortured as the sadistic thientithth live longer?
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Cell senescence is one of the body's main anti-cancer mechanisms, so this would need to be coupled with some cancer vaccines, or all this would achieve would be to trade wrinkly old corpses for fresh young cancer-ridden corpses with a lot less years on them.
98% failure to reproduce in humans (Score:5, Interesting)
I recall reading a quote a few years back from a researcher in this space who was announcing some breakthrough results her team had observed in mice. She indicated that while mice trials are widely useful in medicine writ large because the results are oftentimes reproducible in humans, when it comes to brain research they’ve only had a 2% success rate at reproducing the results in humans, so she was hopefully but not optimistic.
Promising results are great, but it’s hard to get excited about results in this space until human trials show positive outcomes.
Re:98% failure to reproduce in humans (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah. Mouse studies are much better indicators of what won't work than of what will. If it doesn't work in mice then it's probably a dead end, but even if it does work in mice that doesn't mean that it's going to work in humans.
The problem with the continued discussion on these very, very early and preliminary research projects is that they don't usually pan out, and we're left with nothing but disappointment. Probably better to not so widely publicize these sorts of results until there's more promise of success than just mice.
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> when it comes to brain research theyâ(TM)ve only had a 2% success rate at reproducing the [mice] results in humans
Just put mice-brains into patients. Solved!
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Re: 98% failure to reproduce in humans (Score:2)
Was his surname Mengele?
Re: 98% failure to reproduce in humans (Score:2)
Is experimenting on mice like Descartes kicking a pregnant dog because he used ligic to prove she had no feelings?
Finally! (Score:2)
Those mischiefs of senile mice began to get on my nerves.
"brains filled with these cells" (Score:2)
Yeah - they're symptoms of metabolic damage.
Take out the trash for sure, but you'll still have trash accumulating if you don't stop the damage.
Get off the Standard American Diet and get metabolic testing - almost all Alzheimer's patients have mitochondrial dysfunction.
Pointless (Score:3)