Lonafarnib was a drug created to try to battle cancer. It didn’t work for that, but UC Santa Barbara researchers say it may provide an important new weapon in the fight against dementia, and more specific conditions like Alzheimer’s Disease.
UCSB Neurobiologist Kenneth Kosik has been studying the problem and looking at possible solutions for decades. His lab had been doing some stem cell research in its efforts to find a treatment.
They found that a drug called Lonafarnib helps deal with Tau proteins which are factors in dementia. The researcher says the testing started with stem cell cultures and graduated to mice, where it is showing great promise.
But, Kosik says there is an issue in getting the drug from the company for further testing. The company which makes the drug is testing it as a possible treatment for progeria, a rare disease which causes premature aging in children. Kosik says they don’t want to disrupt their progeria testing, and aren’t making it available for dementia research. The company didn’t answer a request from KCLU News for a comment on the situation. Kosik says they’re hoping to find workarounds using a form of the chemical.
The researcher says this type of work is critical. An estimated 5.8 million Americans are living with some form of dementia, and that number is expected to grow to 14 million by the year 2050.
The study is a collaboration of more than a dozen researchers around the world, including teams at Harvard and the Albert Einstein School of Medicine. The study was just published in the latest edition of the journal Science Translational Medicine.
