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Leading 8 compounds, a plea

Posted by Rachro on 13 Apr 2014 at 01:33 GMT

Hello, my name is Rachelle Roach. I am curious as to what the 8 leading compounds are.

Competing interests declared: I have to be honest, I am not an academic researcher or any entity that wishes to gain financial benefit. I am a person seeking out a treatment for my grandmother's Alzheimer's. I joined this site to comment after I saw your article mentioned on sciencedaily.com. You mentioned that over 100 compounds cut the progression rate of Alzheimer's by 30%, and that there were 8 out of this selection that performed better than the others. I wish to know what the compounds are in hopes that my grandmother can have at least one of them prescribed to her, even if it has to be off label. I understand though if you are not willing to share the information, people capitalize even off of science. I simply wanted the chance to ask, and perhaps after that help my grandma with this knowledge. Thank you for reading this comment. (I don't think I'm violating any rules, I read the community guidelines, but if I am, please let me know.)
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RE: Leading 8 compounds, a plea

pasinetti replied to Rachro on 16 Apr 2014 at 16:34 GMT

Dear Ms. Roach,

Thank you for your comment and I am sorry to hear about your grandmother. Our study, as you read, reflects the earliest stage of development of potential drugs that may eventually be suitable for clinical intervention. Nevertheless, at this stage, we identified potential therapeutics features for Alzheimer's disease from a screening of several molecules and identified 8 that are capable to attenuate, in in vitro cell studies and then confirmed some in rodent studies, the content of a toxic protein known as beta amyloid, which is a target for prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Our study, while very encouraging, requires an enormous amount of research before translating this evidence to treatment in human subjects. As it stands right now, the study is still at the experimental level and we hope we will be able to obtain further funding for their characterization and, most importantly, their potential toxicity, as well as the optimal concentration and further investigation of their efficacy on memory functions. All this information is still missing and they are fundamental before we can even consider to move forward. As it stands right now, we also have very little idea of the nature of these compounds and certainly nobody is encouraged to use them in the clinical setting pending the completion of all the work that I discuss above. Since our paper is available to all our colleagues investigating potential novel compounds to develop in the field of Alzheimer's disease, we hope our evidence will spur enthusiasm for collaborative efforts and further investigation by everyone.

I want to thank you again for the opportunity to explain to you the status of this investigation, particularly in the context of translational application.

Best regards,
Giulio Maria Pasinetti, M.D., Ph.D.

No competing interests declared.
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RE: RE: Leading 8 compounds, a plea

Rachro replied to pasinetti on 18 Apr 2014 at 01:27 GMT

Thank you anyways. You have already lead progress towards treatments for Alzheimer's, even if you haven't reached a stage yet where it can be applied to people. Even if those compounds do not reach the market in time for my grandma, I hope they will serve future generations of elderly dementia patients well. I send you my best wishes.

No competing interests declared.
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