STAT Plus: An old idea that’s gaining new traction: curing Alzheimer’s by killing gum-disease bacteria
While large pharmaceutical companies have been reporting failure after expensive failure in their efforts to develop an Alzheimer’s drug by targeting amyloid, a growing number of startups have been quietly trying different strategies. One approach, pioneered by San Francisco-based Cortexyme, is based on an old idea that is gaining traction after being shunted aside for decades: that an infectious agent causes Alzheimer’s, and that targeting that pathogen and the neuronal havoc it wreaks can stop and even reverse the disease.
Proponents of the amyloid hypothesis — that clumps of this protein fragment cause the disease and that eliminating them can stop or reverse it — “have led this field astray for 30 years” said Cortexyme co-founder and CEO Casey Lynch in an email. “Unfortunately, the influence of the few and the groupthink is continuing.”
