http://scienceblog.com/62971/cancer-...brain-protein/

The team also showed that movement and functionality in the treated mice was greatly improved, compared with untreated mice.

In order for such a therapy to be as successful as possible in patients, the agent would need to be used early in neurodegenerative diseases, Moussa hypothesizes. Later use might retard further extracellular plaque formation and accumulation of intracellular proteins in inclusions such as Lewy bodies.

Moussa is planning a phase II clinical trial in participants who have been diagnosed with disorders that feature build-up of alpha Synuclein, including Lewy body dementia, Parkinson’s disease, progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and multiple system atrophy (MSA).

[QUOTE=soccertese;982335]http://scienceblog.com/62971/cancer-...brain-protein/

The team also showed that movement and functionality in the treated mice was greatly improved, compared with untreated mice.



This was very encouraging research. Let's hope we can finally see some research on mice transfer positively to humans.....

wonder how many mice are thinking about getting rx's from their neuros for this drug?
can't be very expensive/difficult phase2 trial, drug already FDA approved at a much higher dose.

will be interesting to see if any other pd researchers comment, MJFF blog today had the following about alpha-s vaccine
https://www.michaeljfox.org/foundati...ent-at-affiris

Yeah, they were able to skip phase 1 and go right to phase 2. Also, the fact they are researching it for Alzheimer’s is a huge positive (since that always attracts more money and attention than PD).

I saw the MJFF blog on the AFFiRis vaccine. Sounds good but it just recently came out of pre-clinical testing. Only in early phase 1 now, so there's a long way to go. None of us PWP are going to be vaccinated anytime soon. But, maybe one day.......

Like many, we are, but seriously, seriously, doubt any neuro we have seen would script this. Maybe we can find someone who is near retirement age

This drug has serious side effects, like sudden death from heart failure, just in case you are considering trying to get it. Granted the dose used here was 1mg once every two days, I think, while the standard cancer dose is hundreds of times that.

Also, this line of research, like many, presumes (1) we all have a-syn buildup (now known not to be the case-many are riddled with a-syn clumps with never a PD sign during their life, and many PWP on autopsy do not have any Lewy bodies) and (2) that a-syn buildup/clumps is bad. What if the build-up of a-syn is some type of compensatory measure the body is taking to offset malfunction further upstream? I have yet to find anything definitive on this and causing further skepticism for me is the work done overseas on the tau aggregation for Alz-when they reduced the plaques of that protein the patients got worse. I know, different disease, but still, the underlying premise is the same: protein clumps: bad....remove them: cure.
,
A few years ago similar research was done on another leukemia drug that was also a tyrosine kinase c-Abl inhibitor, as I believe this drug is. There are posts here on the forum about that research.....also Gleevec, another cancer drug, has been looked at for PD. Gleevec has also been discussed here on the forum. The folks here don't miss much

i haven't researched this that much but i'm glad this avenue of research is being pursued.
lewy bodies appear outside the brain way before motor symptoms begin to appear, in the salivary glands, small intestine in enough patients that they are being investigated as a biomarker. i guess the question is, do they appear in non-pd people at autopsy?

look at the number of worse diseases than pd they want to test. full speed ahead, some of those diseases are fatal, they got nothing to lose. they might not have to recruit any plain jane pd'ers.

http://www.examiner.com/article/brai...charbel-moussa

ST, I don't have cites but yes, there are many instances where they do autopsies on non-PWP and they have plenty of Lewy bodies....but never a symptom of PD. This is the problem: while many autopsied PWP may in fact have Lewy bodies, so do, apparently, quite a few non-PWP. Factor in how few autopsies are done, particularly on non-PWP, and the numbers in support of the claim that Lewy bodies are a "hallmark" of PD gets even foggier.

I don't know why Lewy bodies start outside the brain....in the gut is the first place I have read....perhaps that is why so many PWP have constipation in their youth (although that was NOT our experience). Just goes to show how hard it is to try and lump PWP into one or two groups, there are just so many variances between us. And when you cannot lump the patients into a tidy little group, you cannot push your theory/get funding/woo pharma, however meritorious (or not) it may prove to be.

This may be a great idea, and more power to them. But remember these particular leukemia drugs were originally created to fight a GENETIC form of leukemia. While that sinks in...

I have also read that this particular drug is the "second line" of this class, designed because the cancer cells had apparently grown resistant to the first line. I don't get how a cancer cell can become resistant to a drug, but apparently the first line drugs were losing effectiveness and a second class was created, of which this drug is one. Makes me wonder why these researchers don't look at that first line, they are probably much cheaper and maybe even generic by now.

But remember these particular leukemia drugs were originally created to fight a GENETIC form of leukemia. While that sinks in...

You make a great point here, as nilotinib only works on certain genetic forms of CML. If this drug was eventually proven to be beneficial, it may only work for a subset of PWP (those effected by a-syn). But, that would still be a huge. As with cancer, any succesful neuroprotectve treatments will likely be individual and we will probably need a cancer-like "cocktail" approach.

Chemotherapy kills drug-sensitive cells, but leaves behind a higher proportion of drug-resistant cells. As the tumor begins to grow again, chemotherapy may fail because the remaining tumor cells are now resistant.

http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v1...1000_IT18.html