Alzheimer's leader discusses stem cell progress

Tom Vasich at the University of California Irvine did a Q&A with CIRM grantee Frank LaFerla in advance of the September 30 Southern California Alzheimer’s Disease Research Conference. La Ferla and his colleagues have been working on stem cell-based therapies for Alzheimer's disease.

In a question about the public health impact of Alzheimer's disease LaFerla said:

It’ll be enormous, especially locally. California has the nation’s largest baby boom population; Orange County by itself ranks fifth. Alzheimer’s is going to hit us hard, because age is the most significant risk factor for the disease. One of every 20 people over 65 will be affected by dementia, and eventually half of those over 85 will suffer from Alzheimer’s. This is going to put an amazing strain on our healthcare system and on families.

He went on to talk about his own research, funded by CIRM:

We’ve had a lot of success with animal models showing that neural stem cells can reverse Alzheimer’s-like cognitive deficits. We’ve progressed to creating a population of human neural stem cells that will be the basis of clinical trials on patients. We’re still in the early stages, and we’re fortunate to have received a grant from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine that is supporting our work.

We had the pleasure of talking to LaFerla about this week a few years ago. In this video, he describes the work and the importance of finding a therapy for the disease.



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Neural stem cells reverse Alzheimer's symptoms in mice

Researchers at the University of California, Irvine have reversed Alzheimer’s-like symptoms in a mouse model of the disease with injections of neural stem cells. The mice used in this study mimicked the human disease, showing learning and memory defects and accumulating both beta-amyloid plaques and tau protein tangles within the brain, the two hallmark pathologies of the disease.  Mice that received injections of mouse neural stem cells performed significantly better in memory tests than mice that received control injections. The stem cells did not replace cells lost to the disease. Instead, the injected cells secreted a protein known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), that helped nourish the surviving neurons, encouraging those cells to grow more fibers and form more connections. The injected cells did not reduce the plaques or tangles. Current therapies for Alzheimer’s disease can only reduce the severity of symptoms or slow progression. To date, this is only the second potential treatment shown to actually improve memory in mice with advanced plaque and tangle pathology.



Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 11, 2009
CIRM funding: Frank LaFerla (RS1-00247-1), Matthew Blurton-Jones (T1-00008)

Related Information: UCI Press Release, University of California, Irvine, LaFerla bio

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