Israel Matzav

Israeli researchers find fountain of youth?

This hits close to home for me. As many of you know, my Dad of blessed memory had Alzheimer's (as his father probably did, but no one knew what it was in the late '60's). Now, Israeli researchers think they have found a way to prevent or slow the brain's aging process. Since most people get Alzheimer's in their later years, if one can slow or prevent the brain from aging, one can prevent Alzheimer's.

Cohen’s first breakthrough in this area occurred when he discovered, working with worms, that reducing the activity of the signaling mechanism conveyed through insulin and a hormone called IGF1, constituted a defense against the aggregation of a protein which is mechanistically-linked with Alzheimer’s disease. Later, he found that the inhibition of this signaling route also protected Alzheimer’s-model mice from behavioral impairments and pathological phenomena typical to the disease. In these studies, the path was reduced through genetic manipulation, a method not applicable in humans.

Dr. Hadas Reuveni, the CEO of TyrNovo, a startup company formed for the clinical development of NT219, and Profesor Alexander Levitzki from the Department of Biological Chemistry at the Hebrew University, with their research teams, discovered a new set of compounds that inhibit the activity of the IGF1 signaling cascade in a unique and efficient mechanism, primarily for cancer treatment, and defined NT219 as the leading compound for further development.

Now, in a fruitful collaboration Cohen and Reuveni, together with Cohen’s associates Tayir El-Ami and Lorna Moll, have demonstrated that NT219 efficiently inhibits IGF1 signaling, in both worms and human cells. The inhibition of this signaling pathway by NT219 protected worms from toxic protein aggregation that in humans is associated with the development of Alzheimer’s or Huntington’s disease.

...

Recently, Cohen’s laboratory obtained an ethical approval to test the therapeutic efficiency of NT219 as a treatment in Alzheimer’s-model mice, hoping to develop a future treatment for neurodegenerative disorders that currently cannot be treated.

Sometimes this country can be awesome. But I'll be happy to see the BDS'ers boycotting this one. 

Labels: Alzheimer's disease, biotech, Israeli high tech

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:52 PM