A molecule effective against Alzheimer’s. It is the hope cherished by a team of French researchers from the laboratories of Caen and Montpellier which publishes the promising results of a study in the American scientific journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences). Why are they right to believe it? Because they got their hands for the first time on an active ingredient called donecopride which fights not just one but several molecular targets involved in Alzheimer’s disease. So far all clinical trials have been unsuccessful.
The present active has been tested in vitro on mice with artificially damaged memory. Donecopride has been able to improve their memory. An efficacy of action which has been verified on genetically modified mice suffering from symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s disease. “The molecule exerts several actions, to fight against the symptoms and to halt the progression of the disease. However, the current drugs only alleviate the symptoms, we are not in a curative effect”, explains to Reuters the professor Patrick Dallemagne, director of the Center for Studies and Research on Medicines of Normandy (CERMN), in Caen. Donecopride attacks in particular a serotonin receptor and in fact decreases the production of beta-amyloid, a peptide whose accumulation in plaques is a marker for Alzheimer’s disease.
No clinical tests yet
But we must be right. For now, it is too early to foresee any drug treatment suitable for humans. “There is still a lot of work to achieve clinical tests in humans. We need a transfer of technology, it is not public research that can finance that”.
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