PROVIDENCE – Dr. Stephen Salloway, a professor at Brown’s Warren Alpert Medical School has dedicated much of his career to finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease. Now, after over two decades and hundreds of articles, his research is demonstrating “the most promising treatment results” he’s ever seen.
The results are part of a clinical trial Salloway helped lead for the drug Aducanumab. The antibody aids brain cells in fighting off the amyloid beta proteins that build up and exacerbate the disease’s symptoms. Participants in the study had slower cognitive decline thanks to Aducanumab, a finding Salloway hopes will encourage those affected by Alzheimer’s.
In 2011, President Obama signed the National Alzheimer’s Project Act calling for a national plan to address Alzheimer’s. The following year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released the National Plan to Address Alzheimer’s Disease with the goal of finding significant treatment breakthroughs by 2025. Butler Hospital, and specifically its 25-year-old Memory and Aging Program, which Salloway directs, is at the forefront of this national battle against Alzheimer’s and dementia-related diseases. The program is currently recruiting for phase 3 of the drug trials, the final step before a hoped-for FDA approval. The doctors’ goal, Salloway says, is to find the “[R]ight drug, right dose, right patient with a focus on prevention and early intervention.”
Salloway hopes Aducanumab, with the proper research, will also be able to be adopted to treat other neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.
Dr. Stephen Salloway (news.brown.edu) 
