Sangamo Biosciences is using intracranially injected adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) to deliver nerve growth factor (NGF) to Alzheimer's neurons using a gene therapy technique of the sort generically described here.
Incidentally, Rita Levi-Montalcini, who won the Nobel prize for the codiscovery of NGF, dripped it into her eyes for decades according to Discovery News. Her verbal fluidity in this YouTube interview (sorry for the ads) is hardly reminiscent of the senility that would be expected of someone her age. It seems as though the person writing the captions was unable to keep pace with her biotech vocabulary.
"PET (positron emission tomography) scans were also obtained of the patients' brains at baseline, six and 12 months, and increases in brain metabolism were observed in several cortical regions at six months (p<0.05). Further increases in metabolism were measured at 12 months (p<0.05), representing a potential reversal of patterns typically observed in Alzheimer's disease."
^ That announcement was made in 2007!
Fast forward 8 years of typewriters and paper later... we now have this phase 2 clinical trial. The therapy is described in detail in the video and press release here. "Data from the trial will be available in 2015."
Edited by resveratrol_guy, 19 February 2015 - 02:50 AM.
