Vaccine hope for Alzheimer's patients

Australian scientists have joined the race to develop a vaccine to help stop the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

A research team at the University of Sydney has created a vaccine targeting the damaged proteins inside nerve cells of the brain which cause the neurodegenerative condition.

While the scientists have so far only tested the vaccine in mice with Alzheimer's, the results have shown it can stop the disease progressing.

"Whatever damage was done, we couldn't reverse it but we could prevent its progression," lead researcher Lars Ittner said.

Associate Professor Ittner and his team are working with a major pharmaceutical company on developing the vaccine for human trials within five years.

The new vaccine comes as other scientists around the world continue work on two other revolutionary jabs, which could be available within two years.

While none of the vaccines is considered to be a cure, the treatments have the potential to revolutionise treatment of dementia, which affects 269,000 Australians.

Existing drugs can help stop Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia from getting worse, but they do not tackle the underlying causes and become less effective over time.

The Australian vaccine targets the tau protein found inside neurons in the brain.

When the tau proteins are damaged they turn toxic and cause Alzheimer's and front temporal dementia, the second most common form of the disease in people under 65.

The damaged tau proteins cause twisted fibres known as neurofibrillary tangles to form inside brain cells.

What the vaccine has been shown to do in mice is prevent Alzheimer's from getting worse by stopping the tangles from forming.

The other vaccines, which have been tested on humans, target a different protein in the brain known as amyloid.

In people with Alzheimer's, amyloid proteins build up in the brain and develop into amyloid plaques that sit between nerve cells.

Assoc Prof Ittner said he believed the successful treatment of Alzheimer's disease in the future would be a combination of drugs targeting both the tau and amyloid proteins.

"The problem is that often there are physiological processes going wrong and you can't switch them off," he said.

"Therefore a combination therapy is the most likely to be successful. But I have no idea what that will be at this stage."