Why Is Biogen Pursuing a New Direction in Alzheimer's Research?
For two decades, Alzheimer's research has focused solely on the idea that amyloid plaques on the brain are what cause the disease. Some have even suggested that there's a "cabal" of researchers who have kept other theories from being explored in universities.
And yet all this amyloid research has resulted in 130 Alzheimer's drug failures over the last 20 years. This strongly suggests that maybe amyloid plaques don't cause Alzheimer's, after all.
For instance, some researchers have suggested that amyloid plaques are a kind of "scab on the brain," an attempt by the body to heal something that has gone wrong. Scientists have also noticed that many people with amyloid plaques on the brain do not have Alzheimer's. This suggests that the theory that fixing amyloid plaques will stop Alzheimer's is seriously flawed.
Source Fool.com
