[From A Report on Alzheimer's Disease and Current Research by Dr. Jack Diamond, scientific director of the Alzheimer Society of Canada]

These could be even more exciting than the last decade. Let's look at some of the developments that seem most likely to pay off within ten years. Clinical trials (many already begun and some well advanced) will test the following, and hopefully within the next five to seven years the most promising of them will be approved for people with Alzheimer's disease:

1. Drugs that block the enzymes that split off the toxic A-beta from APP (secretases inhibitors).
2. Drugs that prevent the threatening clumping together of newly formed A-beta molecules.
3. Drugs (like Neprilysin) that help clear away the accumulating A-beta molecules before they begin clumping together.
4. "Neuroprotective" drugs (like the growth factors) that increase the ability of threatened nerve cells to stay alive.
5. Drugs that will prevent the chemical modification of tau protein, and so prevent tangles.
6. New vaccines that will eliminate both the production and the accumulation of amyloid (A-beta) but not have the dangerous side effects of the first vaccines.
7. New vaccines that will eliminate tangles.
8. Improved techniques to implant genetically engineered
   living cells into the brain for delivery of growth factors and other drugs to counteract the development of plaques and tangles.
9. New anti-diabetic drugs that will correct glucose metabolism in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease.
10. New drug delivery techniques which will ensure that drugs get to the regions of the brain where they are needed.
11. Improved availability of non-invasive imaging techniques that will reveal plaques and tangles even before dementia develops. These techniques would use special chemicals injected into the blood, that reach the brain and attach to plaques, and are visualized by imaging, so facilitating early diagnosis and revealing whether treatment strategies are reducing the brain abnormalities.
12. New biological markers for Alzheimer's disease that can be measured in the blood, in the CSF, in urine, and in the skin, to help in early diagnosis, and in evaluation of treatment therapies.
13. Early diagnosis based on the pattern of brain waves (EEG).
14. New cognitive training regimens that will help slow down the decline in brain functioning without the use of drugs.
15. Delivery of therapeutic agents via the nose, in some instances associated with harmless viruses called "phages".

This page last reviewed/revised April 2008.
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