Rachel Roberts

12/12/19

Sanders, Laura. “A Once-Scrapped Alzheimer's Drug May Work after All.” Science News, 6 

Dec. 2019, 

www.sciencenews.org/article/once-scrapped-alzheimers-drug-aducanumab-may-work-after-all.

In the article, “A Once-Scrapped Alzheimer’s Drug May Work after All,” Laura Sanders discusses how aducanumab, a drug designed to slow the progression of Alzheimer’s, could be effective even though it had shown not to be promising in its testing stages. However, when looking more at the data from the trials, it showed that “People who took the highest amounts of the drug declined about 30 percent less, as measured by a commonly used Alzheimer’s scale than people who took a placebo, Samantha Haeberlein of the biotechnology company Biogen reported at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease meeting in San Diego.” Aducanumab is an antibody that is designed to target amyloid, a protein that is believed to be one of the early steps of the disease. While the drug did remove the amyloid from patients’ brains, it did not seem to slow the symptoms a more significant amount than those on a placebo treatment. However, once the data collected after the initial analyses were available, it became clear that those on the highest dose showed signs of their symptoms slowing down. “Updated results included a total of 3,285 people who had early signs of cognitive slipping. Surveys measured participants’ abilities in six aspects of life, including memory, orientation, personal care, and problem-solving. Analyses on a subset of 288 people in one trial who received the highest dose showed that, while they still lost some mental abilities over the year and a half of the study, they declined 30 percent less than those who received the placebo. A similar subset of 282 people in the other trial declined 27 percent less than those who took a placebo. Brain scans showed that, compared with people on the placebo, the brains of people taking aducanumab had less amyloid — and less tau, another protein associated with Alzheimer’s.” These results may seem encouraging the drug being successful. However, many scientists are still wary of possible side effects such as swelling of the brain so, aducanumab may not be available until it is deemed completely safe. 

Aducanumab would be completely life-changing once available to the public. Currently, Alzheimer’s medications can only temporarily hold off symptoms and cannot resist the destruction of the brain. Rebecca Edelmayer, director of scientific engagement for the Alzheimer’s Association in Chicago, said, “A treatment that could actually slow or even stop the damage would have a huge impact for patients and their caregivers,” she says.” Also, the results of these trials could help prove that the protein amyloid is not a red herring but a critical early step of Alzheimer’s. This would be very helpful when trying to create new medications for the disease. Also, some of the brain scans from the tests showed that the people taking aducanumab had less tau, which is another protein associated with Alzheimer’s. These results could also help as they would show how and if the disease was slowing down. This would allow doctors to track the damage the disease does to patients and would maybe help them find ways to stop its effects altogether. Lastly, Sharon Cohen, a behavioral neurologist at the Toronto Memory Program, said during a panel discussion at the meeting, “Those of us who know this disease will know what it means to lose yourself slice by slice. Anything you can hang onto, and do well, is a triumph.”

When reading the article by Laura Sanders, there were many good aspects of her writing. 

She explained the information in the article very well. I was able to understand it even though I have no previous knowledge of the topic. Also, she integrated the story of proving aducanumab is effective in her article while also giving the main details of the research. This allowed me to get a full picture of how important this topic was and how it could affect research, especially in neurology and drug tests in the future. While Sanders did an excellent job explaining the research and the story, the article itself could be choppy. There were areas in the article where the focus of the paragraph would flip between two subjects. It often confused me as I wouldn’t know what was being mentioned at the moment. It would be much better if each paragraph had its focus, so there could not be any confusion on the topics. Lastly, while her article was grammatically correct, there were several areas where it was very wordy and made me go back and read the sentence multiple times. For example, Sanders wrote, “ After being shelved earlier this year for lackluster preliminary results, a drug designed to slow Alzheimer’s progression is showing new signs of life.” When writing articles for a website that is open for anybody of any career or interest to look at, it is much better to stay with more simple syntax and grammar so more people would be able to understand fully.