3 ms·

> We were spending a lot more on AIDS research 20 years ago than on Alzheimer’s today: I still remember in the early aughts when my professor was part of a res

> We were spending a lot more on AIDS research 20 years ago than on Alzheimer’s today: I still remember in the early aughts when my professor was part of a research group in 1995 that found a genetic link in Germans from Russia with Alzheimer’s. At the time it was heralded as a huge break through. 25 years later and The needle has barely moved on their research and accomplishments. In reports published today in the journal Science, researchers say they have isolated a defective Alzheimer’s gene culled from an 8-year-long investigation of several Volga German families, including two from Eastern Washington. Discovery of the gene, and a protein it produces, could speed development of drugs to combat the brain-destroying disorder. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/aug/18/pioneer-families-key-in-alzheimers-find-research/ https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/aug/18/pioneer-famili... Seeing your loved ones suffer through Alzheimer’s is one of the most agonizing and depressing things I've had to experience.

vikramkr 7y ago
Sorry to hear about your experiences with Alzheimers. That gene, presenilin 2, is part of the amyloid processing complex and plays a role in the amyloid hypothesis (which is highlighted by the news article and the paper itself, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/269/5226/970, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/269/5226/970,) meaning that the very study that this hacker news thread is about, as well as hundreds of other studies and trials, are all investigating this hypothesis. Unfortunately, while the article you've linked says that this discovery helped "solve the mystery of early onset AD," it so turns out that the proposhed mechanism did not live up to scrutiny. Could this protein have different effects (such as a role in calcium ion leakage as later papers suggest)? Perhaps, and it might prove a crucial part of treating alzheimers in the long run, but it doesn't look like that research was in any way overlooked. Research is hard, it's only been a couple decades since new potential mechanisms of action of that gene were identified, and this is a complex disease, but the needle is moving.

vikramkr 7y ago

Sorry to hear about your experiences with Alzheimers. That gene, presenilin 2, is part of the amyloid processing complex and plays a role in the amyloid hypothesis (which is highlighted by the news article and the paper itself, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/269/5226/970, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/269/5226/970,) meaning that the very study that this hacker news thread is about, as well as hundreds of other studies and trials, are all investigating this hypothesis. Unfortunately, while the article you've linked says that this discovery helped "solve the mystery of early onset AD," it so turns out that the proposhed mechanism did not live up to scrutiny. Could this protein have different effects (such as a role in calcium ion leakage as later papers suggest)? Perhaps, and it might prove a crucial part of treating alzheimers in the long run, but it doesn't look like that research was in any way overlooked. Research is hard, it's only been a couple decades since new potential mechanisms of action of that gene were identified, and this is a complex disease, but the needle is moving.