DOWNTOWN CLEVELAND, OH (WOIO) -
A huge medical breakthrough is discovered right here in Cleveland. Researchers at Case Western may have found a drug to reverse Alzheimer's.
There's no cure for the disease and many drugs have failed to change that but now there's new hope medicine that so far, has stopped symptoms cold!
"We're really excited that we can reverse both the brain pathology and also the cognitive deficits that are seen in Alzheimer's disease in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease," said Paige Cramer.
27-year old Case Western Reserve School of Medicine grad student Paige Cramer came across something remarkable. After giving mice the drug bexarotene -- which is currently used for cancer patients, the results were stunning.
"We saw differences in how they can remember things now. We saw a decrease in plaque levels the protein that we think causes Alzheimer's disease. We can show a 50 percent reduction in three days," said Paige Cramer.
"It was one of those gee wiz kind of moments," said Professor of Neuroscience's Gary Landreth.
Professor of Neuroscience's Gary Landreth who headed up the experiment tells 19 Action News the breakthrough is amazing but there are still a lot of things to figure out.
"We really don't understand yet how to administer this drug in mice. We don't know what dose to give or how frequently to give it. So we're moving rapidly to ascertain what the best treatment regimen is," said Professor of Neuroscience's Gary Landreth. "The fact that this may impact so many people is I think what we all strive for as graduate students or as researchers."
The next step is to get patients in a clinical study within the next 6 months to a year. Right now the drug should only be used for cancer patients.
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