• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Sunday, October 19, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Health

A ‘low dose aspirin’ for dementia? Drug ready for first in-human testing

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
April 3, 2019
in Health
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Credit: University of Kentucky Office of Research Communications

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 2, 2019) — Alzheimer’s disease wreaks emotional havoc on patients, who are robbed of their memories, their dignity, and their lives. It’s financially devastating as well: care for Alzheimer’s patients is predicted to top $1 trillion by about the time children born today are having children of their own.

To date, there have been very few successes in the pursuit of a treatment. But one drug that looks at AD from a different angle is now ready for its first round of testing in humans,

The vast majority of AD treatments that are currently FDA-approved or in the pipeline target amyloid, which is responsible for the hallmark plaques that interfere with cognition. As the so-called “Amyloid Theory” has produced one drug failure after another, scientists have begun to explore other therapeutic avenues. Linda Van Eldik, Director of the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging at the University of Kentucky, has set her sights on an understudied, but (in her view) more promising target: brain inflammation.

“Inflammation is normally a ‘good guy.’ It clears infections and helps heal wounds, for example,” said Van Eldik. “But in Alzheimer’s disease, the inflammation somehow gets out of whack. It gets too strong and sustains for too long — it’s now turned into a ‘bad guy,’ destroying the neurons that carry signals from one part of the brain to the next.”

Van Eldik began collaborating with Martin Watterson at Northwestern University to identify a drug that would block the “bad” inflammation in the brain without affecting the “good” inflammation that helps jumpstart repair.

After years of research, Van Eldik is ready to test this drug — enigmatically named MW-151 — in humans. Both the National Institutes of Health and the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation are sufficiently intrigued that they’ve bet a combined $5.5 million to underwrite her efforts.

This is quite an accomplishment: current estimates say that for every 5,000 to 10,000 compounds that enter the drug discovery process, only five will go into a human clinical trial.

Even if MW-151 beats the considerable odds that confront every potential new drug, it’s years away from being available to the public. If the drug ultimately proves safe and effective, Van Eldik believes that MW-151 will function as a once-daily pill that staves off dementia, much like a baby aspirin prescribed to prevent heart attack or stroke.

That could be a game-changer in the fight against AD. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, delaying the onset of dementia by just five years would cut the incidence almost in half, which translates to enormous financial and emotional savings for patients and their families.

Van Eldik does not consider MW-151 a silver bullet, however.

“This is a very complex disease ” she cautions. “A single approach — even our approach against inflammation — may not be enough.”

“I think this drug it will be most effective as part of a ‘cocktail’ of drugs that target multiple mechanisms of the disease. If that worked out, boy, that would be a slam dunk.”

###

The Sanders-Brown Center on Aging was founded at the University of Kentucky in 1972, quickly establishing itself as a national leader in efforts to improve the quality of life for the elderly through research and education.

Sanders-Brown has played an instrumental role in several landmark breakthroughs related to Alzheimer’s and other dementias, including the discovery that there are changes in the brain decades before there are outward symptoms of the disease.

In 1985, Sanders-Brown was among the first 10 Alzheimer’s Disease Centers funded by the National Institutes of Health. Currently, only 31 designated Alzheimer’s Disease Centers exist in the U.S. and only nine — including Sanders-Brown — has been continuously funded since the designation was launched.

Media Contact
Laura Wright
[email protected]

Tags: AgingAlzheimerClinical TrialsGerontologyMedicine/Healthneurobiology
Share12Tweet7Share2ShareShareShare1

Related Posts

Exploring Language Switching in Multilingual Autistic Adults

October 19, 2025

Effective Nursing Strategies for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention

October 19, 2025

Serum Proteomics: Uncovering COVID-19 Organ Morbidity Biomarkers

October 19, 2025

Diabetes Management Linked to Social Vulnerability Factors

October 19, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Sperm MicroRNAs: Crucial Mediators of Paternal Exercise Capacity Transmission

    1261 shares
    Share 504 Tweet 315
  • Stinkbug Leg Organ Hosts Symbiotic Fungi That Protect Eggs from Parasitic Wasps

    289 shares
    Share 116 Tweet 72
  • New Study Suggests ALS and MS May Stem from Common Environmental Factor

    123 shares
    Share 49 Tweet 31
  • New Study Indicates Children’s Risk of Long COVID Could Double Following a Second Infection – The Lancet Infectious Diseases

    103 shares
    Share 41 Tweet 26

About

BIOENGINEER.ORG

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Restoring Kraak Porcelain Patterns with Generative AI

Sex Differences in Anxiety and Depression Modulation

Exploring Language Switching in Multilingual Autistic Adults

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Success! An email was just sent to confirm your subscription. Please find the email now and click 'Confirm' to start subscribing.

Join 65 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.