In the early stages, Alzheimer's patients are aware of their intellectual decline and become frequently depressed as the disease worsens.
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Alzheimer's disease does not affect elderly people only, but may strike young people, too. A rare, but all the more tragic fate.
In the disease, the accumulation of harmful brain plaque is linked to certain proteins. One of these is called amyloid precursor protein (APP). Molecular "scissors" cut it out of a large protein. In elderly patients, one pair of these scissors, the gamma-secretase, cuts at the wrong site. With fatal consequences: the "wrong" amyloid piece clumps with other substances in insoluble tangles. Thus, important nerve cells die, and memory and other brain functions degenerate relentlessly.
At present there are still no drugs available that can cure Alzheimer's. Perhaps a drug would be of benefit that would switch off the malfunctioning scissors.
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The 42-year-old scientist from Munich, Prof. Christian Haass is a member of the National Genome Research Network and a specialist for Alzheimer's research. He and his research team made a discovery that will aid in finding a drug to treat Alzheimer's: they were able to show that four genes carry the blueprint for gamma-secretase.
Page 2: How Christian Haass identified the components of the Alzheimer scissors.
