A Leap Toward a Treatment For Alzheimer’s Disease Veronica Galvan PhD Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies and the Department of Physiology “Think Health Science” Texas Public Radio University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

September 9, 2015

Cognitive impairment, personality changes, dementia

ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

Alzheimer’s disease

Amyloid-beta plaques Tau tangles

Ongoing clinical trials § Amyloid-beta § Tau §  Inflammation §  Insulin resistance § Prevention in Familial Alzheimer’s

Neurological diseases of aging

Increasing age

Alzheimer’s

Parkinson’s

Normal

Vascular dementia

Risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease

How important is aging?

Aging overwhelms all other risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease

How important is aging?

How important is aging? Impact of slowing brain aging

on Alzheimer’s disease

The rate of aging is controlled by specific genes

Can we block diseases of aging like Alzheimer’s by slowing down aging?

Increasing age

Alzheimer’s

Parkinson’s

Normal

Vascular dementia

nature International weekly journal of science

nature International weekly journal of science

SCIENCE Breakthrough of the year

Alzheimer’s Parkinson’s

Vascular dementia Frontotemporal dementia

Dementia with Lewy Body

Unaffected sibling

A drug that slows aging treats established Alzheimer’s memory loss

Unaffected Sibling,

Rapamycin

AD Mouse

AD Mouse,

Rapamycin

Lear

ning

and

mem

ory

Normal sibling Alzheimer’s not treated

A drug that slows aging restores brain blood flow

Alzheimer’s treated with rapamycin

A drug that slows aging restores brain blood flow

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

Control Rapamycin

Normal sibling Alzheimer's

** NS

Brain blood flow is critical for brain function

Increasing brain blood flow reduces amyloid-beta accumulation

Control

Rapamycin

A drug that slows down aging stops the progression of Alzheimer’s in mice

A drug that slows down aging blocks Vascular Dementia in mice

Control

Rapamycin

Normal VaD VaD + rapamycin

Mem

ory

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

A drug that slows aging restores brain blood flow in very old rats

A drug that slows aging restores brain activity in very old rats

Slowing brain aging

Increasing age

Alzheimer’s

Parkinson’s

Normal

Vascular dementia

to treat Alzheimer’s

Increasing age

Alzheimer’s

Parkinson’s

Normal

Vascular dementia

Drugs to block age-associated neurological diseases

Rapamycin Rapalogs TOR inhibitors in development

Solanezumab Gantanerumab Aducanumab

0

5

10

15

Placebo Rapamycin

Before After

Clinical trial at the VA

Nor

mal

ized

sco

re

(SLU

MS

and

TA

PS

)

1 mg/day Dr. Dean Kellogg, personal communication

SA GRECC San Antonio Geriatric Research Education and Clinical Center

Understanding brain aging to prevent and treat Alzheimer’s and related dementias

Knowledge = Knowledge Research = Power to treat and cure

Basic,Translational and Clinical Biomedical Research

Making lives better