Date: Jan 12, 2015 Source: ShrevePort Times (
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Who would think that an obscure sea moss might hold the key to treating Alzheimer's disease?
A team of researchers at LSU Health Sciences Center believes it's true.
The findings of their three-year study into the effects of a drug derived from the moss are published in the new issue of Current Alzheimer's Research medical journal.
Researcher J. Steven Alexander, Ph.D, a professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, said LSUHSC teamed up with Aphios Corporation and its president/CEO Trevor P. Castor, and received a National Institutes of Health Small Business Innovation and Research award to study the potential of Bryostatin to treat Alzheimer's disease.
Bryostatin was developed as a cancer treatment. Alexander said it ended up not being a very good cancer drug, but was found to have interesting effects on memory and cognition.
The team — which included Lisa Schrott, Ph.D; Ping Yi, M.D.; and Kasey Jackson, graduate assistant — tested the drug on mice that have been designed to get human Alzheimer's disease. The drug prevents the brain from being cluttered up by toxic amyloid and allows more normal memory to return.
The mice were placed in a tank of water and shown where a clear platform was located.
"If the mouse has good memory, it will swim to it," Alexander said. "If it has bad memory, it will swim around and it can't quite remember where it is. The number of seconds it takes to get to the platform is much higher. Over time, a smart mouse very quickly learns because it really doesn't want to spend time in the water. An Alzheimer's mouse takes a lot longer. When we treat them with the drug, it goes much more like a normal mouse. It takes much less time because it remembers."
While Alexander is comfortable saying impaired mice treated with Bryostatin show memory and cognition that are not different from ordinary mice, he stops short of calling the drug an Alzheimer's cure because it has only been tested in mouse models.
That's why the next step is applying for an NIH grant and FDA approval to begin Phase I and Phase II clinical trials for safety and efficacy.
And while nothing is a sure thing, Alexander is optimistic about approval because Bryostatin has already been the subject of extensive testing for safety as a cancer drug.
"They've given patients large amounts of this and the only effect is muscle pain. There's been no problem with blood cells, bone marrow, we know it doesn't cause cancer — it's used to fight cancer."
Another factor in Bryostatin's favor: It seems to be just as effective in pill form as in an injection.
"It's much easier to push through FDA approval when it's orally available in a pill," Alexander said. "It's much easier to swallow, any way you look at it."
Right now, though, the price would be hard for most people to swallow.
Bryostatin is derived from Bugula neritina, a sea moss that grows about 60 feet down in the ocean off the coast of California. It's collected by teams of divers and it takes a lot of moss to get enough to make a treatment.
"Right now, it's about $1,000 a milligram and it would take several milligrams for a dose," Alexander said. "There might be people who could afford that, but not too many.
"(Aphios') goal is to get enough of it and make it cheap enough to treat people. Right now, the treatment for Alzhiemer's costs many thousands of dollars. We're getting to the point that we know how to make Bryostatin cheaper and the good thing about it is we think the effect may be pretty durable. It may have a relatively long-lasting effect, so you may not have to take that pill every single day. It might be possible to take the pill every couple of weeks, which would make it a lot cheaper."
Developing an Alzheimer's disease treatment that is both effective and affordable is vital, Alexander believes, as people live longer.
"The longer you live, the greater the chances you will develop a dementia like Alzheimer's. That means the burden on medical economics is going to be tremendous."
Alexander said Alzheimer's disease is currently the third-leading cause of death in the United States. Right now, about 4.5 million people have it, but by 2015, it's projected that 22 million people will be affected, almost 10 percent of the U.S. population.
"It would eat up so much of health care in U.S., it would be impossible to find enough money."
Aside from the financial burden, the simple human cost is devastating — something Alexander knows from personal experience. His father developed dementia before his death.
One person with Alzheimer's disease requires one and a half caregivers, said occupational therapist Christine Wright, Ph.D, an associate professor in the LSU School of Allied Health Professions.
The immense burden takes a toll on the caregiver's emotional, physical and spiritual well being, she said. And caregivers often live in denial, hoping for a medicine that will reverse the inevitable.
"We know the way that the disease progresses," Wright said. "Until such time as something can stop it or reverse it, it will always end up in death. There is no miracle family that it won't happen that way.
"It is a terrible, terrible disease that robs people of themselves," she said. "We as caregivers bear witness to that decline and would love to stop it at any point if we could."
So you can imagine how she feels about the potential new treatment.
"I'm absolutely thrilled that we have something, and especially here — it's always awesome in our own backyard. I would be OK with being put out of the Alzheimer's business.
"It would truly be life changing on a global scale if this is something that comes to fruition through the human trials."
Alexander said plans are to apply this year for grants and approval to move into the next phase.
"It's kind of frustrating, knowing you've got a drug which likely would do everything that you think it will. It's already been tested, you know that it's safe, you know it doesn't cause cancer because it's used to treat cancer and still the wheels grind awfully slow."
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