An antibody that can almost completely clear the visible signs of Alzheimer’s disease from the brain has been discovered in a breakthrough that left one scientist “trying not to get too excited”. Researchers scanned the brains of people with the degenerative condition as they were given doses of the drug, which is based on an immune cell taken from the blood of elderly people aged up to 100 who showed no signs of the disease. After a year, virtually all the toxic “amyloid plaques” that build up in Alzheimer’s patients appeared to have gone from the brains of those given the highest doses of the antibody. The scientists, who described their results in a paper in the journal Nature, also said the patients showed signs that the rate of their cognitive decline had slowed. The findings of the trial suggest the plaques are at least part of the cause of the disease – not simply a byproduct. And, if the results are confirmed in larger clinical trials already under way around the world, one expert said it could be a “game-changer” for efforts to prevent Alzheimer’s. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...reakthrough-new-drug-scientists-a7218481.html
