Stem cell therapies and Alzheimer’s disease
an improvement in short and long-term memory, as well as spatial awareness. 52 The number of amyloid plaques had also decreased. This is greater than the success of current treatments, which shows no improvement of cognitive function, but slows cognitive decline. It is hard to make a comparison, as no long-term measurement of the success of implanting neural stem cells in mice has occurred. If stem cells could be safely implanted, then they would be more beneficial to the patient, enhancing neuron regeneration and improving cognitive function, and increasing their quality of life. With consistent stem cell transplants, the patient could prolong their prognosis for a considerable number of years. This would be quite costly with current stem cell treatments and would require much more testing to be approved for clinical use. A future where stem cell treatments work alongside current treatments seems probable, even though the root cause of the disease is still not tackled. It will not be the definitive cure, but a huge step in the right direction.
Conclusion
A cure for Alzheimer’s disease i s needed now more than ever. Current treatments do not stop the disease from taking its toll on the 50 million people worldwide. 53 Epidemiologists say that the total number of Alzheimer’s cases will double every twenty years. 54 This essay has tried to assess a route of potential treatment to an issue of increasing significance. While there is considerable research into the use of stem cells, these have not yet been successfully tested and trialled in human models yet. Even in animal models, the complex path ology of Alzheimer’s has not been recreated. Despite this, there has been improvement shown in mice studies, but to translate this to human trials will take a significant amount of time and many potential problems will need to be solved. There is more hope. Over the past century we have increased our knowledge of the disease significantly. We know that AD is an age-related disorder and is the product of the processes found in normal ageing. Lifestyle countermeasures are gaining increasing scientific ground, and even though they are yet to be unanimously approved, there are an increasing number of experts preaching the benefits of them. Research funding needs to be reinvested to areas of higher burden such as dementia, and this has improved. David Cameron launched the ‘ Dementia Challenge ’ , a government initiative committed to more than doubling research spending on Alzheimer’s in 2014. In the USA, Congress has also agreed to a $350 million increase in its 2016 budget to Alzheimer’s funding. There are many al ternative avenues of research being explored currently as well . 55 The most encouraging research currently is the research into amyloid-based treatments. In 2016, the US biotech firm Biogen released some early clinical trial results for their new antibody drug, designed to clear amyloid beta using the brain’s immune cells. Moreover, there is increasing progress in the field of genetics. Developments of CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) has been significant in the past 30 years. CRISPR, used by bacteria to protect themselves against viruses, can store a fragment of Virus DNA, and upon reinfection, uses the information to delete any DNA with the same sequence. CRISPR can also be
52 Seung et al. 2013. 53 Taylor 2020: 1. 54 Jebelli 2017a: 233. 55 Ibid.: 236-7.
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