EGFR inhibitors used to fight cancer show surprising efficacy in fly, mouse models of beta amyloid-associated memory loss.

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – A team of neuroscientists and chemists from the U.S. and China today publish research suggesting that a class of currently used anti-cancer drugs as well as several previously untested synthetic compounds show effectiveness in reversing memory loss in two animal models of Alzheimer’s’ disease.

CSHL Professor Yi Zhong, Ph.D., who led the research conducted in fruit flies and mice, says he and his colleagues were surprised with their results, which, he stressed, used two independent experimental approaches “the results of which clearly converged.”

Researchers at Newcastle University have revealed the mechanism by which neurons, the nerve cells in the brain and other parts of the body, age.

The research, published today in Aging Cell, opens up new avenues of understanding for conditions where the ageing of neurons are known to be responsible, such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease.

The ageing process has its roots deep within the cells and molecules that make up our bodies. Experts have previously identified the molecular pathway that react to cell damage and stems the cell’s ability to divide, known as cell senescence.

However, in cells that do not have this ability to divide, such as neurons in the brain and elsewhere, little was understood of the ageing process. Now a team of scientists at Newcastle University, led by Professor Thomas von Zglinicki have shown that these cells follow the same pathway.

Launch of first ever rapid, objectively-scored GP assessment to differentiate between patients with memory loss due to the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s disease and normal memory loss caused by ageing

Cambridge Cognition, a spin-out of the University, today announced its plans to launch the GP version of their memory test to aid early detection of Alzheimer’s disease. The company is based on the ground-breaking work of University of Cambridge neuropsychologists Professors Trevor Robbins and Barbara Sahakian who co-invented the original test, the Paired Associates Learning test or PAL. (They are currently consultants for Cambridge Cognition.)

The company markets touch-screen neuropsychological tests , known as CANTAB®, and these have been used in over 500 universities, institutes and hospitals in over 50 countries around the world as well as for research published in over 700 peer-reviewed publications. The first mobile-platform version of one of these tests, CANTAB Mobile, will be widely available to GPs in less than a year following successful trials in NHS primary and secondary care settings. The test will allow GPs to triage patients presenting memory problems quickly, simply and accurately.