Scientists ID Genesis of Alzheimer's Disease

A study by University of Texas Southwestern researchers published in eLife has pinpointed the exact moment when a healthy protein becomes toxic but has not yet formed deadly tangles in the brain that cause Alzheimer's, reports ScienceDaily . "We think of this as the Big Bang of tau pathology," says UT Southwestern's Mark Diamond. The investigators extracted tau proteins from human brains and isolated them as single molecules. They determined tau's damaging form exposes a part of itself that is normally folded within, which makes it bind to other tau proteins and enables the accumulation of neuron-killing tangles. The next stage for Diamond's team is developing a simple clinical test that examines a person's blood or spinal fluid to detect the first biomarkers of the abnormal tau protein. Diamond also notes projects underway to devise a treatment that makes the diagnosis actionable are just as valuable. "The hunt is on to build on this finding and make a treatment that blocks the neurodegeneration process where it begins," he says. "If it works, the incidence of Alzheimer's disease could be substantially reduced. That would be amazing."