Question: How many protiens have you found that cause damage to the brain and have you found out how to prevent the damage?

Dawn Lau answered on 13 Jun 2016:

I’ll answer specifically about Alzheimer’s disease (AD), otherwise there are too many different proteins to talk about!

It’s been known for a long time now that there are two proteins that seem to play an important role in Alzheimer’s disease. They are called tau and beta-amyloid. We suspect they have a big role because these proteins fold up in a weird way and become really sticky, when we look at the brains of people with AD. Now, just because the proteins fold and clump up weirdly doesn’t necessarily mean they are damaging to the brain: some researchers believe that something else is causing the damage and that these proteins clumping up are actually a side effect. In experiments carried out on cells and animals though, we can artificially give them tau and beta-amyloid and they clump up and misfold in the same way as they do in AD brain tissue, so I do think these proteins are causing damage.

Lots of research is now focused on how to prevent the damage caused by these proteins. Many drugs in development work by soaking up the extra beta-amyloid and tau protein, in the hopes that the drug clears the toxic forms and not the helpful forms of the protein. However, so far, clinical trials in humans haven’t been successful yet, so we still have a lot of work to do!