Cure Alzheimer's Fund: Targeting Breakthrough Research

On Friday, August 24, Eli Lilly announced that their beta-amyloid immunotherapy (solanezumab) failed to meet its primary clinical endpoints for Alzheimer's disease. This disappointment follows the recent failure of another promising beta-amyloid immunotherapy, bapineuzumab from Pfizer/Johnson and Johnson-Jannsen/Elan. Both drugs failed in Phase 3 clinical trials, where they were being tested for their actual effect on Alzheimer's patients.

After failed second clinical trial, Bapineuzumab studies are dropped for patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease, as the drug was ineffective against clearing Abeta plaques in mild to moderate Alzheimer’s patients. The important consideration is to provide an Abeta clearing therapy far earlier in the disease process.  Read Wall Street Journal Article here.

Last week, Cure Alzheimer’s Fund Research Consortium chairman Rudy Tanzi was featured on NOVA in a segment concerning genetic testing. The special followed several cases of people affected by genetic testing, showing both its benefits and challenges. NOVA only briefly touched on Alzheimer’s disease, but provided a comprehensive explanation of how genetic testing works and how it can be used to better develop medical research, disease treatments and illness prevention.

On March 7-10, Cure Alzheimer's Fund staff represented the organization at the 27th annual International Conference of Alzheimer's Disease International. This video was shown throughout the convention, and gives a detailed explaination of Cure Alzheimer's Fund's approach and goals.

Researcher Rudolph Tanzi is quoted extensively in Science Magazine's recent article concerning the Obama administration's decision to increase funding for Alzheimer's disease research. The decision, announced last week, includes an increase of $80 million for research, as well as the reprogramming of $50 million from the National Institutes of Health's annual budget. As Tanzi stated, "it's persistence" from the lobbyists that finally has made this disease a national priority.

Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, chairman of the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund Research Consortium, is now featured on the Discovery Channel-based website Curiosity.com. Tanzi provides answers to numerous questions posed by Curiosity with the intention of informing the public about Alzheimer’s disease and the Alzheimer’s Genome Project™.

To see some of the answers to today’s most pressing questions about Alzheimer’s, click here.

Dr. Rudy Tanzi and co-founder of USAgainstAlzheimer's George Vradenburg recently wrote a letter to the editor of the L.A. Times rebuking the editorial "Is Alzheimer's Inevitable?" published Nov. 21. They write:

On January 6, an article by Robert C. Malenka and Roberto Malinow was published in the journal Nature. Malenka and Malinow's article, both of whom are Cure Alzheimer's Fund Research Consortium Members, focused on recent research surrounding the causes of Alzheimer's and studies in mice that have pinpointed specific regions and proteins within the brain thought to be associated with the disease.

Read the full article

Cure Alzheimer's Fund co-founder and venture capitalist Henry McCance and Dr. Rudolph Tanzi discuss the latest research on Alzheimer's, the hope of discovering a cure by 2020 and the success of using a venture capital funding model to spur on research at TEDMED 2010.

Alzheimer's Reading Room, a leading source of Alzheimer's news and information, covered McCance and Tanzi's presentation at TEDMED. The blog entry can be viewed here.