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The Development of New Therapeutics for Alzheimer's Disease
Author(s) -
Carter M D,
Simms G A,
Weaver D F
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
clinical pharmacology and therapeutics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.941
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1532-6535
pISSN - 0009-9236
DOI - 10.1038/clpt.2010.165
Subject(s) - disease , medicine , biomarker , alzheimer's disease , intervention (counseling) , drug development , amyloid β , intensive care medicine , neuroscience , bioinformatics , psychology , drug , psychiatry , biology , pathology , biochemistry
Existing treatments for Alzheimer's disease (AD) fail to address the underlying pathology of the disease; they merely provide short‐lived symptomatic relief. Consequently, the progression of AD is unrelenting, leading to a continual decrease in cognitive abilities. Recent advances in understanding the genetic factors that predispose to AD, as well as in biomarker development, have brought with them the promise of earlier and more reliable diagnosis of this disease. As improvements continue to be made in these areas, the shortcomings of current AD treatments appear all the more acute because opportunities for early intervention are hindered by a lack of “curative” or even disease‐modifying drugs. This State of the Art report reviews existing AD therapeutics and highlights recent progress made in the design and development of drugs that are aimed at disrupting AD disease progression by inhibition of the protein misfolding of β‐amyloid (Aβ) into neurotoxic oligomeric aggregates. Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics (2010) 88 4, 475–486. doi: 10.1038/clpt.2010.165