Stuart Lipton offers a new possible reason why all the...

Stuart Lipton offers a new possible reason why all the Alzheimer's drugs have failed @Vinceanna

We have discussed in this thread how amyloid may have accumulated as a consequence of the disease rather than being the cause of the disease. The key to a therapeutic treatment for AD may lie in understanding the role of the immune system and in particular, the inflammatory pathway.

The article that Vinceanna has linked goes one step further and suggests that clearing the misfolded plaques that build-up in patient's brains may trigger more inflammation and make things worse rather than better. Lets think that through in relation to other disease indications for instance, Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

Could gene therapy and the production of the micro-dystrophin protein trigger more inflammation and rather than improve outcomes make things worse? If inflammation is a key driver of disease - which it is - could downstream interventions be ultimately self defeating? Remove the inflammatory logjam upstream and then deal with the problem protein expression downstream.

It would be interesting to know whether CD49d levels increased in patients who were administered SRP-9001.