Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disorder affecting approximately 55 million people globally, leads to severe cognitive decline and memory loss. Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology have developed a synthetic peptide, PHDP5, that targets early-stage Alzheimer’s by ensuring the availability of dynamin for vesicle recycling in neurons, demonstrating significant restoration of memory and learning functions in transgenic mice. Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disorder, stands as the primary cause of dementia.
This condition leads to cognitive deterioration, memory loss, and eventually renders individuals unable to carry out everyday activities. Currently, it impacts approximately 55 million people worldwide. In Japan, around 4.
4 million people suffer from dementia, with projections suggesting this figure will rise to 6.5 million by 2060, according to government statistics. Curing or delaying the debilitating symptoms of Alzheimer’s is extraordinarily difficult due to the elusive nature of the disease.
The exact cause is unknown, and likely involves multiple factors from genetics to lifestyle, and due to the progressive nature of the condition, it is often too late to treat effectively once the symptoms begin to impact daily life. However, a team of researchers from the former Cellular and Molecular Synaptic Function Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), led by Professor Emeritus To.
