Off-the-Shelf Drug Rapidly Clears Alzheimer’s Protein in Mice

When do we get breakthroughs like this for stroke?
http://dana.org/news/features/detail.aspx?id=35464

A drug that is already approved by the FDA for treating a rare skin cancer greatly reduces brain levels of Alzheimer’s-associated amyloid beta (A-beta) protein in mouse models. The drug, bexarotene, works in the mice by boosting the activity of apolipoprotein E, a fat-carrying molecule that normally helps to clear A-beta from the brain (see “Why Does apoE4 Make Alzheimer’s More Likely?”). If bexarotene’s A-beta clearance effect in mice translates to humans, then it may prove useful against Alzheimer’s—though perhaps more as a preventive than as a treatment for established Alzheimer’s dementia.

“This is quite an exciting paper; the effect on A-beta clearance is dramatic and rapid,” says Sam Gandy, who chairs the Alzheimer’s research program at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

“The drug reduces the soluble forms of A-beta within hours,” says Paige Cramer, the PhD student who was first author of the paper. Cramer works in the laboratory of Gary Landreth, director of the Alzheimer’s Research Laboratory at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, and principal investigator for the study, which appears today in Science Express

More at the link.