(CNN -- Scientists say they "serendipitously" discovered that a drug used to treat a type of cancer quickly reversed Alzheimer's disease in mice.
"It's really exciting," said Maria Carrillo, senior director for medical and scientific relations for the Alzheimer's Association. "They saw very positive and robust behavior effects in the mice."
In the study, researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine gave mice mega-doses of bexarotene, a drug used to treat a type of skin cancer called cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. Within 72 hours, the mice showed dramatic improvements in memory and more than 50% of amyloid plaque -- a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease -- had been removed from the brain.
The study was published Thursday in the journal Science.
Gary Landreth, the lead researcher at Case Western, cautioned that even though his results were impressive in mice, it may turn out not to work in people.
"I want to say as loudly and clearly as possible that this was a study in mice, not in humans," he said. "We've fixed Alzheimer's in mice lots of times, so we need to move forward expeditiously but cautiously."
Mice -- and humans -- with Alzheimer's have high levels of a substance called amyloid beta in their brain. Pathology tests on the mice showed bexarotene lowered the levels of amyloid beta and raised the levels of apolipoprotein E, which helps keep amyloid beta levels low.
Landreth said he hopes to try the drug out in healthy humans within two months, to see if it has the same effect.
Those participating in the trial would be given the standard dose that cancer patients are usually given.
Researchers tested the memories of mice with Alzheimer's both before and after giving them bexarotene. For example, the Alzheimer's mice walked right into a cage where they'd previously been given a painful electrical shock, but after treatment with bexarotene, the mice remembered the shock and refused to enter the cage.
In another test, the scientists put tissue paper in a cage. Normal mice instinctively use tissues in their cage to make a nest, but mice with Alzheimer's can't figure out what to do with the tissues. After treatment with the drug, the Alzheimer's mice made a nest with the paper.
Carrillo said one of the major advantages of bexarotene is that it's already been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in humans, which means the researchers can move into human trials sooner than if it were a completely new drug.
The Alzheimer's Association is funding Case Western's next phase of research, which will involve using bexarotene at the levels used on cancer patients, Landreth said. Since the drug does have some side effects -- it can increase cholesterol, for example -- he hopes to use it in even lower levels as the study goes on.
Landreth said his lab had been working on other drugs for Alzheimer's for 10 years when a graduate student, Paige Cramer, decided to try bexarotene, which works on a receptor involved in amyloid beta clearance. Some other drugs that worked in mice were too toxic to use in humans.
"We're really lucky that bexarotene is a great drug with an acceptable safety profile," he said. "This doesn't happen very many times in life'"
Geoff Watts
Although not due to be published until May 2013, the fifth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(
DSM-5
is already provoking dissent among psychiatrists and psychologists in Britain. Critics claim it will make an already problematic diagnostic system worse and result in more people being labelled mentally ill.
Producing a new edition of the
DSM
is a major undertaking. This one, prompted by the accumulation of new information on neurology, genetics, and behavioural sciences, has been compiled by the 162 members of 13 separate work groups, helped by a further 300 advisors and informed by many open meetings.
All this effort has failed, however, to create unanimity. “The new categories are based on lists of symptoms that don’t necessarily map well on to the underlying biological and psychological processes involved in emotion, behaviour, and cognition,” said Nick Craddock, professor of psychiatry at Cardiff University.
Speaking at a critical briefing on the current plans for the
DSM-5
he claimed that more aspects of emotion, behaviour, and cognition are going to be labelled as diagnoses. This will medicalise more of what most people view as normal human behaviour.
He offered the example of someone having an episode of severe low mood that met the accepted diagnostic criteria of depression. “Currently, if this follows bereavement, it would be excluded. It would be regarded as normal. But in
DSM-5
the plan is to remove the bereavement exclusion. What most would view as a normal reaction to the death of a loved one would be labelled as a depressive illness,” said Professor Craddock.
Peter Kinderman, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Liverpool and also speaking at the briefing said, “
DSM-5
is making the process of describing and explaining situations worse.” He gave as an example the diagnosis of gambling disorder. “For individuals and for society gambling is a problem. I think it’s unhelpful to regard it as an illness,” he said.
“The proposed revision will include a vast number of social, psychological, and behaviour problems in the category of mental disorder, so pathologising mild eccentricity, loneliness, shyness, sadness, and much else. One worries about what this will mean for the person who receives the label.” To be categorised as mentally ill has all sorts of consequences, he added.
Professor Kinderman suggested that “the American Psychiatric Association call a halt and convene a representative international expert panel to discuss the proposals.” This is a wasted opportunity, he said, because there is a genuine need to reconsider psychiatric diagnosis.
Both speakers talked in their capacity as individual practitioners. But Professor Craddock said, “I believe that a large proportion of psychiatrists in the UK and Europe would be as sceptical as I am.” So too, he added, would psychologists.
Categorisation of the kind proposed for the
DSM-5
might be more appropriate in the US where a medical diagnosis is often necessary to qualify for reimbursement for the costs of treatment. But even in its home country it is not finding universal approval.
Notes
Cite this as:
BMJ
2012;344:e1020
Three weeks ago, the National Institutes of Health announced new rules to govern federally-funded researchers and their financial conflicts of interest. Three years in the making, the policy will affect
over 38,000 scientists at 2000 organizations as the NIH attempts to ensure that biomedical research, paid with taxpayer dollars, remains objective.
But none of these changes might have happened were it not for Dr. Charles Nemeroff.
A renowned chairman of psychiatry at Emory University, Nemeroff was a proponent for drugs sold by GlaxoSmithKline, such as the antidepressant Paxil. While earning hundreds of thousands of dollars jetting around the country and giving talks about Paxil to doctors at fancy restaurants, Nemeroff also managed a multi-million dollar grant from the NIH to research drugs under development by Glaxo.
The ensuing scandal became central to an investigation by Senator Charles Grassley into undisclosed payments from companies to prominent physicians—a practice that puts patients at risk and drives up healthcare costs. As Grassley’s lead investigator on the matter, I had a ringside seat as arguably the most powerful psychiatrist in the country was forced from prominence, eventually leaving Emory.
In This Story:
Intro |
Ghosts From The Past |
A History Of Conflict|
Welcome To The Sunshine State|
Mistakes Were Made|
“Couldn’t Be Better“
At my new job with the Project On Government Oversight (POGO , a government watchdog, I have continued to study the cozy relationships between physicians and corporations. I also observed as Nemeroff left Emory for a new job at the University of Miami which has a medical school operating under financial strain. But why would this school snatch up a physician with such a history?
According to new emails and other materials shown to me, UM officials had serious concerns about Nemeroff’s history of ethical blunders. However, these emails suggest that Nemeroff’s perceived ability to raise money trumped those concerns. At one point while negotiating with UM for a job, Nemeroff even dangled the possibility of a new funder for the school if he was hired. These emails imply that, despite new federal rules, the public must remain vigilant to ensure that medicine is practiced with the highest regard for ethics and patient safety.
Officials at UM did not respond to detailed and repeated questions about the emails, which include communications by UM President Donna Shalala, who is now facing public scrutiny over a separate ethics scandal involving UM’s football program.
By Paul Thacker.
Accutest Research Laboratories (I Pvt. Ltd., the leading independent and internationally accredited Contract Research Organization (CRO in India, was founded back in 1998 by Dr. Satish Sawant and Dr. Santosh Joshi and is headquartered in
Navi Mumbai
. It primarily focused in conducting Bioavailability and Bioequivalence studies for the generic pharmaceutical industry. For over a decade Accutest’s success in Bioavailability/Bioequivalence services has earned it a strong reputation in the field both in domestic and international markets. With the passage of time, the company has widened its network by introducing more diversified services that includes Clinical Trial Management, Clinical Data Management and Formulation Development. The company sets itself apart by providing its global client base a process-oriented service coupled with high quality data on drug candidates at extremely competitive prices more quickly and efficiently than its competitors.
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