Following a recent breakthrough in the medical field, scientists believe we have finally reached a ‘tipping point’ in the battle against Alzheimer’s.
Specifically, The Alzheimer’s Society recently stated that researchers have started developing an injection which is designed to mute the genes that play a role in the memory-destroying disease developing. As for why they are confident the injection is soon to be fully functional, a similar approach has already been used in trials to help children with a rare spinal condition, so far the treatment has shown ‘remarkable’ results.
To be more precise, CRISPR gene editing technology is being used in the previously-mentioned process to silence the genes that are known to help the disease develop. This is a different approach to the one that has been traditionally explored by scientists, normally researchers have looked to target the damaging proteins that build up in the brain, this has been the case simply because gene-editing technology has only recently developed enough to make this new method possible. This, of course, is great news to the 850,000 people in the UK living with some form of dementia, whether we will be seeing the solution arrive within 10 years as some scientists predict, I guess we will have to wait and see.
