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P Tau antibody found

tau antibody

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#1 ceridwen

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Posted 16 July 2015 - 03:14 PM


Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre Research published research today that says an antibody to P Tau has been found that clears it out of the brain
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#2 zorba990

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Posted 19 July 2015 - 10:06 PM

It targets a misfolded version of the protein. How are they planning to get it into the brain without it causing more problems?

http://www.bizjourna...tial-brain.html

Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have developed an antibody that can target and treat the beginning causes of Alzheimer’s and other debilitating neurodegenerative diseases.
In the exciting research, funded partially by the National Institutes of Health and published this week in the journal Nature, researchers first found that a brain protein, known as the tau protein, can become misshapen as soon as 12 hours after a traumatic brain injury.
Previous research has also shown that abnormal development of the tau protein underlies Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.
“Healthy tau protein is found in the brain and serves to assemble and support microtubules, the ‘scaffolding systems’ that give neurons their unique shape and are integral to memory and normal brain functioning,” said co-senior author Dr. Kun Ping Lu, chief of the division of translational therapeutics in the Department of Medicine at BIDMC and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, in a release.
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Yet a traumatic brain injury – such as from a concussion or from military-related blasts, or in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s, the tau protein becomes tangled and unable to function.
This tangled protein can soon spread to other neurons. The tangled neurons are unable to transport mitochondria – which provides energy for neuron functions — leading to widespread neuron death.
In addition to tracking the development of this distorted protein, researchers also created an antibody that can target these problematic proteins, acting like a lock and key.

“We have developed a potent monoclonal antibody that can prevent the onset of widespread neurodegeneration by identifying and neutralizing this toxic protein and restoring neurons’ structural and functional abilities,” Lu said.
To conduct the study, researchers first confirmed that this protein was present in diseased human brain cells, and that misshapen tau proteins were the cause of neurodegenerative diseases.

The authors then simulated contact sport and blast-related injuries in mice, finding that the formation of disrupted tau proteins depended on how severe the injury was or how frequently injuries occurred. In mild concussions, the tau protein was only moderately disrupted. But repetitive concussions or a severe blast or impact caused persistent and longstanding changes to the protein.
Researchers then used an antibody to eliminate the toxic tau protein, preventing the neurons from dying and tangles from spreading, and restoring brain structure and function.
Researchers hope to next develop ways to identify when this distorted protein is present in humans, and develop the antibody for human use.
The work has promising implications for the 5 million Americans and 30 million people worldwide that suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.
The findings could also help identify and treat those at risk for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — which has been found to be in the brains of boxers, American football players and blast-exposed veterans and is characterized by risk-taking, aggression and depression.
“Alzheimer’s disease and chronic traumatic encephalopathy are terrible diseases that progressively rob individuals of their memory, judgment and ability to function,” said study coauthor Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, chief of the division of cognitive neurology at BIDMC and professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School. “We need to learn more about CTE’s causes in order to develop better ways of diagnosing and treating it, and this study offers us a promising early intervention to prevent the pathologic consequences of this disease ...These findings additionally offer us a new way to approach Alzheimer’s disease.”

Edited by zorba990, 19 July 2015 - 10:12 PM.


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#3 resveratrol_guy

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Posted 22 July 2015 - 05:20 AM

First of all, that link is broken for some reason. Try this one instead.

 

How do they plan to get it into the brain? Interesting question, especially considering that Axon Neurosciences has effectively done this years ago; their tau vaccine is in a phase 1 clinical trial here.

 

Don't get me wrong. We need all the options we can get, and I wish this Beth Isreal team luck getting something through the FDA before the next ice age. It would be a real shame to see this brilliant discovery steamrolled by bureaucracy.

 







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