Best Post of January 2013: The Biggest Alzheimer Disease Discovery in 2012

Kári Stefánsson

The next in our "Best of the Month" series is from January 4, 2013:

Perhaps the biggest discovery in the Alzheimer research world last year was the identification of a mutation in APP that significantly decreases its cleavage by β-secretase, leading to 40% less production of amyloidogenic peptides in vitro. The researchers found the mutation (A673T) in the APP gene protects against Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline in the elderly without Alzheimer’s disease.

Future drugs that can recreate this Aβ-reducing effect “should perhaps be given not only to people at risk of Alzheimer’s but to all elderly people,” says Kári Stefánsson, senior investigator of the study, which came out of Iceland and appears online in Nature.