Promising Research Points to Early Diagnosis for Alzheimer's
In the search for a cure for Alzheimer's, the view of most scientists is that once the conditions for the disease have taken hold, the prospect of a cure is bleak. Currently an accurate diagnosis can only be achieved after death. Early diagnosis may achieve what the treatment strategies have so far failed to accomplish, that is, a means of prevention and possibly a cure.
Promising research from a team at Northwestern University Illinois suggests that a diagnostic test may be available in the not too distant future. The scientists have devised a biological process that acts rather like a barcode to reveal the concentration of certain proteins known to exist in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.
Proteins known as ADDLs (amyloid beta-derived diffusible ligands) are known to have a negative effect at the nerve junctions in the brain (the synapse). The effect of ADDLs is to contribute to the build up of sticky plaques of amyloid beta protein and this is thought to have a direct bearing on cells that store memories and process information. ADDLs are so small (20,000 times finer than a human hair) and so diluted that, to date, they have been impossible to find in the living.
So, rather than look directly for ADDLs, the research team have used both gold and magnetic nanoproteins that bind to them. Some of the nanoproteins also bind to a section of DNA which acts rather like a biochemical barcode. This can then be 'read' in order to reveal where ADDLs are concentrated. By using a magnet the ADDLs attached to the magnetic nanoproteins can be removed.
Currently the test is undertaken by extracting Cerebrospinal Fluid which requires a spinal tap. Scientists believe that it should eventually be possible to conduct the test by using blood or urine. Meanwhile, a lot more investigation needs to be done with much larger samples of volunteers. The possibility of the diagnostic test also raises the ethical dilemma of whether people should, or want, to be told that they face Alzheimer's disease? If the test is developed as a viable diagnostic tool it may help in some way towards the devising of treatments but its primary aim is diagnostic.
