Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. It is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a progression from episodic memory problems to a slow global decline of cognitive function and it affects 10% of the people over the age of 65.
Unfortunately, the current treatments are purely symptom-relieving and an actual treatment or prevention of Alzheimer is still lacking.
Ilona B. Bruinsma and her team at Nijmegen, The Netherlands, have designed bifunctional “β -sheet breakers” that interfere with the portions of the Aβ peptide known to contribute to aggregation and GAG interaction.
Read this interesting paper free to access from MedChemComm
A rational design to create hybrid β-sheet breaker peptides to inhibit aggregation and toxicity of amyloid-β
Ilona B. Bruinsma, Anna Karawajczyk, Gijs Schaftenaar, Robert M. W. de Waal, Marcel M. Verbeek and Floris L. van Delft
Med. Chem. Commun., 2011, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C0MD00213E
