Santanu Maitra, Ph.D., associate professor of chemistry, has studied Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases for nearly 12 years and believes that lowering the body's production of Apoe4, known as a "bad protein" linked to the onset of the disease, could delay or even avoid the start of Alzheimer's in the brain.

Dr. Maitra cautions that there's still much to learn about the central nervous system and Alzheimer's disease, and there's no consensus about what causes the disease. But Maitra and his research partner, Dr. Jungsu Kim, a biologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, believe that the Apoe protein, which the APOE gene helps produce in the body, should be reduced in the brain to treat Alzheimer's disease. Like many other conditions, Alzheimer's likely develops as a result of complex interactions among factors such as age, genetics, environment, lifestyle, and coexisting medical conditions. So lowering Apoe might be just one of a number of approaches, but one that could be tailored to the patient, says Maitra.

"In the future, if our research succeeds and we develop a drug/medicine for Alzheimer's disease, it might be specific to humans with particular genotypes."

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