Inside STAT: The rise and fall of the amyloid hypothesis

(ALEX HOGAN/STAT)

Where did the amyloid hypothesis for Alzheimer’s disease come from, and why has it kept such a tenacious hold on dementia research and drug development? STAT’s Damian Garde takes us back to Alois Alzheimer’s turn-of-the-century discovery of amyloid plaques in the brain of a woman with early-onset dementia. Nine decades later, the drug industry advanced its first big amyloid idea based on that observation: a vaccine that would turn the body’s defenses against the offending plaque. It didn’t work. Nor did the numerous amyloid-directed pills and antibodies that followed. Which prompts this question: How did nearly two decades of failure not convince the brightest minds in pharma that it was time to move on? To understand why, watch here.