Brian Kraemer receives Washington Research Foundation award

Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects nearly six million people in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this number could rise to 14 million by 2060. AD impairs memory, cognition and behavior, severely impacting the patient’s quality of life and ability to live independently. It accounts for around 60% of dementia cases.

Current treatments for AD attempt to clear the amyloid plaques that are present in patients’ brains. However, this approach does not seem to substantially improve cognition and there is little evidence that it slows the disease’s progression. Recent studies indicate that amyloid plaques may be a symptom, rather than a cause, of AD.

Kraemer and his colleagues are instead addressing the misfolding of a protein, tau, that can kill neurons in the brain and is the other key indicator of AD. By reducing the activity of a related binding protein, MSUT2, Kraemer believes it is possible to make tau less toxic and arrest the progression of AD.

“WRF’s generous support has enabled us to make rapid progress on early-stage drug discovery work towards MSUT2-based therapeutics. We are very excited by the opportunity to continue our work developing MSUT2-targeted small molecules,” said Kraemer.