Unique Brain Protein May Lead to Alzheimer’s Test

NEW YORK — Researchers have identified a protein apparently found only in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease victims, a discovery that may lead to the first chemical diagnostic test for the disease which afflicts an estimated 2 million Americans.

Dr. Peter Davies, who led a research team at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine that reported its findings in the May 2 issue of Science magazine, said today that he hopes to perfect such a test within a year.

“We’ve discovered a protein in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients which appears to be unique to Alzheimer’s disease. It doesn’t occur in the normal brain. It doesn’t occur in the brains of patients with other neurological diseases either,” Davies said today on the “CBS Morning News.”

Davies said he was not sure if the protein is a cause or a result of the disease. “We’re going to try very hard to find out in the next six or seven months,” he said.

“It is a very, very important finding,” said Dr. Robert Katzman of the University of California at San Diego, an authority on Alzheimer’s, interviewed by the New York Times. Scientists have long sought to find a way to distinguish brain changes due to Alzheimer’s from changes that occur in normal aging.

Alzheimer’s disease victims gradually lose their memory and intellectual abilities and become unable to care for themselves.

Scientists have not yet developed a reliable diagnostic test for Alzheimer’s. But Davies expressed optimism that the protein his team found will appear in spinal fluid, making such a test relatively simple.

Although no cure is known for the disease, Davies said a reliable test would aid doctors by identifying which patients might be subjects for new medicines, and it would also prevent people with other, treatable ailments from being misdiagnosed.