Buck Institute begins human trial of new Alzheimer’s drug in Australia
By Richard Halstead
The Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato has launched its first human clinical trial since research began at the institute in 1999 — testing the effectiveness of a drug to treat a type of cognitive impairment that often precedes Alzheimer’s disease.
Stelios Tzannis, the Buck Institute’s director of clinical sciences, said the institute decided to conduct the trials itself because of promising results in preclinical trials on mice. Tzannis said the drug has reversed memory loss in mice with the equivalent of Alzheimer’s — not just mice with “amnestic mild cognitive impairment,” which the drug is being tested on in the trial.
“After a couple of months of treatment essentially they look like normal mice,” Tzannis said. “This is pretty astonishing.”
The Alzheimer’s Association has projected that there will be 5,861 Marin residents age 65 or older with Alzheimer’s disease by 2015 and that the number will nearly double to 10,361 by 2030. The death rate for Alzheimer’s disease in Marin County in 2012 was 34 per 100,000 population, compared with the statewide rate of about 31 per 100,000 population, according to the California Department of Public Health.
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