Hope for new vaccine in battle with Alzheimer’s

A JAB to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease could be on the horizon after a new treatment has been successfully tested.

A vaccine prevented the build-up of toxic brain proteins in mice.

Researchers hope the remedy could be used to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s in humans with no serious side effects.

Lead scientist Prof Roger Rosenberg, director of the US Alzheimer’s Disease Centre at the University of Texas said scientists were “getting close to testing this therapy in people”.

He said: “This study is the culmination of a decade of research that has repeatedly demonstrated that this vaccine can effectively and safely target in animal models what we think may cause Alzheimer’s.”

Two kinds of protein are believed to play a key role – beta-amyloid, which forms sticky clumps in the brain, and tau, which produces destructive “tangles” in nerve cells.

In the study, the vaccine triggered an immune response that led to a 40 per cent reduction in betaamyloid build-up and reduced tau formation by half. Two previous studies from Prof Rosenberg’s lab showed similar immune responses in rabbits and monkeys. If repeated in humans, the effects seen in the mice would have “major therapeutic value”.

There are 850,000 people with dementia in the UK, according to the Alzheimer’s Society. One in six over the age of 80 has some form of dementia, and 62 per cent of all sufferers are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the most common form.

Study co-author Dr Doris Lambracht-Washington said: “If the onset of the disease could be delayed by even five years, that would be enormous for the patients and their families. The number of dementia cases could drop by half.”

A major obstacle to developing effective Alzheimer’s vaccines has been finding safe ways to introduce them to the body.

No effective treatment for Alzheimer’s currently exists, although several other therapies targeting amyloid plaques and tau tangles are being researched and tested.

It is important to diagnose Alzheimer’s at its earliest stage before the brain deteriorates.

Prof Rosenberg said: “The longer you wait, the less effect a vaccine will probably have.

“Once those plaques and tangles have formed, it may be too late.”