Skip to Content

New Push for Alzheimer’s Vaccine

Treatments that would tackle protein buildup are in trials
January 1, 2007

Researchers hope to one day treat Alzheimer’s with vaccines that prevent or clear the buildup in the brain of a protein known as beta-amyloid. But an early clinical trial of one such vaccine, sponsored by Elan of Dublin, ­Ireland, was stopped in 2002 after some patients developed encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain. Later, autopsies showed that despite the inflammation, the vaccine did clear the toxic protein from the patients’ brains.

Here a micrograph of human brain tissue shows buildup of beta-amyloid plaque as a circular lesion.

The Elan vaccine used the beta-­amyloid protein itself to induce an immune response. Now, the National Institute on Aging is sponsoring a new trial of an antibody-based therapy already used to treat immune disorders: intravenous injection of immunoglobulins. The therapy uses a mix of different antibodies, including some against amyloid. Because immunoglobulins have already been used to treat thousands of people with immune disease, scientists say they are unlikely to cause inflammatory problems.

“There is tremendous interest in this approach,” says Neil Buckholtz, who leads the NIA’s research on dementias of aging. Elan also has an antibody-based drug in clinical trials.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.