New Alzheimer's Gene Is Pinpointed

An Alzheimer's patient, right, at a medical center in Bloomington, Minn. New research could improve the accuracy of predictions about the disease. (Associated Press)

By SHIRLEY S. WANG

WSJ

New research has pinpointed a gene that could improve predictions of who will develop Alzheimer's and at what age.

Allen Roses, director of Duke University's Deane Drug Discovery Institute, said that if other researchers get the same findings, it could mean a drastic improvement in the accuracy of predictions about the disease as well as the approximate age within a five-to-seven-year window when individuals might begin noticing symptoms. And if drugs to slow the course of Alzheimer's become available, the gene could help identify who should begin taking those drugs earlier.

In 1993, Dr. Roses reported that people who have a variant of the ApoE gene have an unusually high risk of developing Alzheimer's. Despite facing initial skepticism, his findings have since been replicated by a number of independent scientists. Testing for the gene variant, called ApoE4, has become accepted as a way of identifying individuals at high genetic risk for Alzheimer's.

But investigators haven't found drugs that slow the disease in these ApoE4-positive individuals; they have only been able to identify their risk of getting the disease. Also, the ApoE4 findings don't explain why many people with the most common version of the gene, ApoE3, also get the disease.

(More here.)