Using Math to Help Treat Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and Other Diseases

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences detailed a model developed to better understand how drugs inhibit the growth of protein fibrils, offering a guide to develop more effective strategies to target protein aggregation diseases like Alzheimer's, reports Medical Xpress . Different drugs target different stages of protein accrual, and the timing of their administration is crucial to inhibiting fibril growth. "This understanding could have important implications for intervention protocols to prevent pathological protein aggregation," said Harvard University Professor L. Mahadevan. The team applied mathematical techniques from control theory, in conjunction with the physics of protein aggregation, to theoretically predict how and when to intervene with medication. They determined a drug's effectiveness depends on whether it inhibits primary or secondary nucleation. "By combining well-known concepts from two different fields, the kinetics of protein aggregation, and optimal control theory, we linked molecular-scale phenomena to macroscale strategies with relevance for a real, practical problem," noted Mahadevan.