Alzheimer Disease: Carrillo MC

Carrillo MC, Sanders CA, Katz RG. · Alzheimer's Association, Chicago, IL, USA. · Alzheimers Dement. · Pubmed #19362888 No free full text.

Abstract: The Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative is the largest public-private partnership on brain research underway at the National Institutes of Health. This 6-year study tracks cognitive and brain changes in normal subjects, those with mild cognitive impairment, and individuals with Alzheimer's disease. It was designed to provide better tools for performing effective clinical trials, and is slated to run until 2010. While data are being generated and analyzed, researchers involved in the study are developing an extension, i.e., the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative II. The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health and the Alzheimer's Association convened a meeting to review the progress, evaluate future directions, and obtain the United States Food and Drug Administration's perspective on how the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative could affect the drug-approval process.

Carrillo MC, Blackwell A, Hampel H, Lindborg J, Sperling R, Schenk D, Sevigny JJ, Ferris S, Bennett DA, Craft S, Hsu T, Klunk W. · Alzheimer's Association, Chicago, IL, USA. · Alzheimers Dement. · Pubmed #19328456 No free full text.

Abstract: The purpose of the Alzheimer's Association Research Roundtable meeting was to discuss the potential of finding diagnostic tools to determine the earliest risk factors for Alzheimer's disease (AD). Currently, drugs approved for AD address symptoms which are generally manifest after the disease is already well-established, but there is a growing pipeline of drugs that may alter the underlying pathology and therefore slow or halt progression of the disease. As these drugs become available, it will become increasingly imperative that those at risk for AD be detected and possibly treated early, especially given recent indications that the disease process may start decades before the first clinical symptoms are recognized. Early detection must go hand-in-hand with qualified tools to determine the efficacy of drugs in people who may be asymptomatic or who have only very mild symptoms of the disease. Devising strategies and screening tools to identify and monitor those at risk in order to perform "prevention" trials is seen by many as a top public-health priority, made all the more urgent by an impending growth in the elderly population worldwide.

Schenk D, Carrillo MC, Trojanowski JQ. · Elan Pharmaceuticals, 800 Gateway Boulevard, South San Francisco, CA 94080, USA. · Alzheimers Dement. · Pubmed #19595899 No free full text.

Abstract: The Alzheimer's Association Research Roundtable, a consortium of Association senior scientists and leaders from pharmaceutical, biotech, and imaging companies, met to discuss strategies for developing novel therapeutics for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The goal of the meeting was to address, primarily, strategies that do not hinge on directly modulating levels of beta-amyloid. The identification of beta-amyloid as the major constituent of senile plaques and the subsequent discovery that familial AD can be caused by mutations in either the beta-amyloid precursor protein or presenilins, proteases that cleaves beta-amyloid from its precursor, has spawned numerous therapeutic strategies for treating AD. These include passive and active vaccines for clearing beta-amyloid from the brain and the development of small molecule inhibitors of beta- and gamma-secretases that can attenuate the production of beta-amyloid. But the field recognizes that there is more to AD than beta-amyloid alone. What role do neurofibrillary tangles play in the disease, for example, and how are they influenced by beta-amyloid? What lies upstream of beta-amyloid production in the sporadic AD brain, and how do apolipoproteins and cholesterol influence disease progression? Are there environmental or behavioral factors that contribute to the initiation or progression of sporadic AD? Because of the complexity of AD, the field is continually looking to other therapeutic strategies that may complement or substitute for therapies that target beta-amyloid. This roundtable meeting was charged with discussing and evaluating some of those strategies.

Ivinson AJ, Lane R, May PC, Hosford DA, Carrillo MC, Siemers ER. · Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. · Alzheimers Dement. · Pubmed #18631952 No free full text.

Abstract: Drug discovery has traditionally been almost exclusively the purview of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, whereas universities have focused on basic research. However, given the challenges involved in discovering and developing truly effective, symptomatic treatments and disease-modifying drugs for Alzheimer's disease, there is a need to reassess this simple division of labor. Whereas each sector is likely to retain a core interest and expertise at either end of the drug discovery spectrum, there is room for closer cooperation at the intersection of the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. The Alzheimer's Association Research Roundtable convened a meeting of senior industry researchers and academic investigators to discuss this intersection and to assess the opportunity for closer partnership on Alzheimer's disease drug discovery and development.