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I watched The Bit Player last week. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bit_Player https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bit_Player Claude Shannon had Alzheimer’s.

I watched The Bit Player last week. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bit_Player https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bit_Player Claude Shannon had Alzheimer’s. Nothing protects us from the disease. We should be doing a lot more research into this disease.

FabHK 6y ago
And it is such an ignominious end, even more so when you were identified with your intellect so much.
vikramkr 6y ago
The scientific field is already doing a ton - Neuro is one of the most active areas of research right now. Behind COVID that is, currently pretty much everything is on hold for COVID. Pre-COVID however oncology and neuroscience were already among the biggest focus areas of research. One of the basic problems is that we lack a fundamental understanding of how the disease works, so throwing more money at it gets diminishing returns beyond a point. It's like the war on cancer in the 1970s. We threw tons of money at cancer research which basically consisted of trying more newer combination chemotherapies in greater amounts and in new permutations trying to find the combination of chemicals that would eradicate all cancers. That only got us so far. However, at the same time, with a lot less funding and public support, scientists were making headway at understanding cancer not necessarily as a cellular disease, but as a genetic disease. By realizing that cancer is driven by genetic mutations, those scientists paved the way for the vastly more effective treatments and rush of immunoconcology/personalized/targeted therapies we see today. Throwing more money at Alzheimers at this point basically all but guarantees more trials of amyloid beta inhibitors at earlier stages and with bigger trials. We've already burnt tens of billions of dollars on that. The basic research to understand the disease is actually cheaper in the long run than running more of those clinical trials, but it's a stochastic, slow process with unclear goals and timelines.
jcranmer 6y ago
> We should be doing a lot more research into this disease. Trying to actually pin down hard numbers is difficult (searches invariably lead you to the cost of Alzheimer's disease rather than the cost of Alzheimer's research), but it looks like we're already at several billion dollars a year on Alzheimer's research. If it hasn't cost more than the Apollo project already, it likely will by the end of this decade.
- melling 6y ago
  The healthcare costs for Alzheimer’s will be in the trillions, if we don’t cure it.

FabHK 6y ago

And it is such an ignominious end, even more so when you were identified with your intellect so much.

vikramkr 6y ago

The scientific field is already doing a ton - Neuro is one of the most active areas of research right now. Behind COVID that is, currently pretty much everything is on hold for COVID. Pre-COVID however oncology and neuroscience were already among the biggest focus areas of research. One of the basic problems is that we lack a fundamental understanding of how the disease works, so throwing more money at it gets diminishing returns beyond a point. It's like the war on cancer in the 1970s. We threw tons of money at cancer research which basically consisted of trying more newer combination chemotherapies in greater amounts and in new permutations trying to find the combination of chemicals that would eradicate all cancers. That only got us so far. However, at the same time, with a lot less funding and public support, scientists were making headway at understanding cancer not necessarily as a cellular disease, but as a genetic disease. By realizing that cancer is driven by genetic mutations, those scientists paved the way for the vastly more effective treatments and rush of immunoconcology/personalized/targeted therapies we see today. Throwing more money at Alzheimers at this point basically all but guarantees more trials of amyloid beta inhibitors at earlier stages and with bigger trials. We've already burnt tens of billions of dollars on that. The basic research to understand the disease is actually cheaper in the long run than running more of those clinical trials, but it's a stochastic, slow process with unclear goals and timelines.

jcranmer 6y ago

> We should be doing a lot more research into this disease. Trying to actually pin down hard numbers is difficult (searches invariably lead you to the cost of Alzheimer's disease rather than the cost of Alzheimer's research), but it looks like we're already at several billion dollars a year on Alzheimer's research. If it hasn't cost more than the Apollo project already, it likely will by the end of this decade.

melling 6y ago
The healthcare costs for Alzheimer’s will be in the trillions, if we don’t cure it.