Worming Our Way to Alzheimer’s Disease Drug Discovery

“You may delay, but time will not.” Truer words were never said. For patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease (AD), this represents a cruel truth. Most AD patients are left with a few good years before neurodegeneration strips them away of their daily competence and, ultimately, their identity. Since its discovery more than 100 years ago, significant advancements have been made in understanding the pathology underlying AD. However, in terms of therapeutic strategies, we are no closer to curing it than we were decades ago. Even today, only five drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of AD. These drugs treat AD only symptomatically and do not target the underlying neurodegenerative pathology. Currently approved therapeutics are successful in slowing the progression of AD but not in reversing or preventing the symptoms of AD.