There is a special news for Alzheimer’s patients. The news is that the College of London University has discovered a special kind of medicine or rather a therapy to control Alzheimer’s disease. It has been named ‘gene silencing’. This special type of drug BIIB080 (IONIS-MAPTRx) will dissolve in the patient’s gene and then slowly start showing its effect. Simply put, it will flow sufficient amount of protein in the veins of the patient. A team from the College of London University, which has been doing research on this for a long time. He recently used ‘gene silencing’ on Alzheimer’s and dementia patients and saw that the effect of this drug is visible on the patients.
Tau protein
The name of the drug being used in this therapy is BIIB080 (IONIS-MAPTRx). In this therapy, the level of a protein named Tau is increased in the body according to the need. For your information, let us tell you that the protein flowing in the veins is known as Protein Tau (MAPT) gene. A single dose of this medicine prevents tau protein from growing in the gene and keeps it under control.
Square Institute of Neurology and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and consultant neurologist Dr. Catherine Mummery (UCL Queen) said that we still need to do more research to understand how this drug is affecting the disease. And gradually correcting the movement of the body. There is a large group suffering from this disease. But we can definitely say that the better results are being seen from this medicine. This would be an important step in the field of this disease. We have been successful in controlling the over flow of tau protein through this drug therapy gene silencing. Along with Alzheimer’s, whatever disease is caused due to increase in tau protein, we can easily treat it through this therapy.
Trial done on patients of this age
The Phase I trial looked at the safety of BIIB080, what it does in the body and how well it affects the MAPT gene. In all, the drug was tested on 46 patients with an average age of 66 years. This happened from the year 2017 to 2020. In this, injections were given in the spinal code. So that the effect of the medicine is on the nervous system. According to the published report in the journal Nature Medicine, the effect of the drug is visible on the patients. He has given a very good response. All patients completed the treatment period and more than 90 percent are still on treatment.
Patients see mild side effects
Mild side effects of the drug were also observed in the patients. The most common is headache after injection of the drug. However, no serious adverse effects were observed in patients given the drug. The research team divided the patients into two groups, gave higher doses of medicine to one group and less to the other. They found total tau and phosphor tau concentration levels in the CNS decreased by more than 50 percent after 24 weeks in the two treatment groups receiving the highest dose of the drug.
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