Allal Boutajangout
New York University Langone Medical Center,USA
Title: Therapy and Immunotherapy Targeting Alzheimer’s Disease
Biography
Biography: Allal Boutajangout
Abstract
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an age-related progressive disorder characterized by the extracellular accumulation of amyloid β (Aβ) peptides as plaques and cerebral amyloid angiopathy (CAA), as well as intracellular neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs). AD is the most common cause of dementia globally. Care for patients with dementia accounts for ~1% of current global GDP, with this expected to rise substantially in the near future. No effective treatment is available to prevent or cure AD. Currently available treatments for AD provide largely symptomatic relief, with only minor effects on the course of the disease; hence, there is an urgent need for better therapeutic interventions. Aβ has become a major target for disease modifying treatments of AD. Unfortunately, the ongoing trials targeting amyloid Aβ failed in phase III trials. So far, the clinical benefits to the patients are limited and have no effect on tau related pathology. Previously, we reported for the first time, that active and passive immunotherapy targeting tau pathology reduces tau pathology and improves cognitive decline in two different NFT models. Recently, we developed a new monoclonal antibody against PHF-tau that reduces tau pathology and improves cognitive decline without inflammation. We have also explored the potential effects of hUCB-MSC on AD pathology. Our results suggest that use of these stem cells is associated with a reduction of amyloid burden, which correlates with improvements of cognitive function in a transgenic AD mouse model. These promising approaches using immunotherapy targeting tau or stem cells to reduce Aβ pathology in animal AD models provide critical data prior to potential clinical trials.