Back to the future: the 'old-fashioned' way to new medications for neurodegeneration.
Despite the increasing prevalence of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and less common neurodegenerative diseases-and despite the large amount of primary research that has been carried out into the causes and pathogenic features of these conditions-progress toward effective treatments has been remarkably slow. Why is this, and what can be done to accelerate it? There are a number of obstacles to effective drug discovery for neurodegeneration, but by considering these problems it is possible to identify lessons for the future.
Lansbury
Peter T
PT
Harvard Center for Neurodegeneration and Repair and the Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Center for Neurologic Diseases, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 65 Landsdowne St., Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA. plansbury@rics.bwh.harvard.edu
D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000628:therapy; D000818:Animals; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006801:Humans; D008959:Models, Neurological; D016571:Neural Networks, Computer; D019636:Neurodegenerative Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000628:therapy*; D010300:Parkinson Disease / Q000628:therapy