MUST READS

(login required) According to a March 27, 2017 Endpoints article, "In biopharma R&D, the biggest and best drug targets always involve unmet medical need—and Alzheimer’s fits that definition better than any other major disease." The article highlights progress in the Alzheimer's research and development field.

(login required) According to a March 27, 2017 MedScape article, the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry has issued findings on a new study looking at the practice guidelines for Alzheimer's medicines - and found that there's little consensus around when it makes sense to change treatment.

RESEARCH, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

A March 24, 2017 Medpage Today article reported on the use of focused ultrasound beams to open the blood-brain barrier in patients with Alzheimer's disease, with the aim of making it more permeable to assist amyloid-scavenging drugs in reaching the plaques. "We treated the first two Alzheimer's patients yesterday, and things went well. We were able to open the blood-brain barrier successfully,” according to the study's principal investigator, Nir Lipsman, MD, PhD, Neurosurgeon, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. This is the first such use of focused ultrasound to treat Alzheimer's disease in humans.

CAREGIVER CORNER

A March 23, 2017 Huffington Post article reported on the heavy toll of caregiving for family members with dementia, when compared with older adults without dementia, according to a report released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in 2016, “Families Caring for an Aging America.” Finding support services for family care partners is likened to, ‘digging for buried treasure.’ The John A. Hartford Foundation is producing a comprehensive website where family caregivers compare dementia caregiving programs in order to select the right services for their family.

POLITICAL INSIGHTS

A March 28, 2017 AXIOS article recounted highlights of an interview with John Crowley, Chairman and CEO of publicly-traded Amicus Therapeutics, whose daughter suffers from Pompe disease. When asked about NIH funding, Crowley replied, "For me as an entrepreneur, it's all about inventions and healing, and I think NIH plays a crucial role. It's part of this virtuous circle that it necessary to advance medicines to patients, which also includes the grants that NIH provides to our academic institutions. Our university research system is the core for basic science and basic translational research and is the basis for a lot of the good ideas that come into a company like ours."

ALZHEIMER'S IN THE MEDIA

A March 28, 2017 New York Times article interviewed Niki Kapsambelis, author of the book, “The Inheritance,” which tells the story of the DeMoe family, where five out of six children inherited an early-onset Alzheimer’s gene. The family curageously dedicated themselves to the scientific cause of combating the disease. According to Kapsambelis, “Originally I thought the book would focus almost exclusively on the family, with a passing nod to the science. But the more I learned about the doctors who have made the discoveries that advanced Alzheimer’s research, the more I realized how compelling those stories were in their own right.”

EVENTS AND RESOURCES

Join in today at 1pm (EST) for the #CitizensSolvingAlz Twitter chat with @eyesonalz and @_BrightFocus.