ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE Alzheimer’s drugs are failing clinical trials, because we still do not understand what causes this complex disease.
44
Million People
worldwide have Alzheimer’s or a related dementia
In 2018, Alzheimer’s
cost the United States
$277 Billion
The cost of treating Alzheimer’s is expected to quadruple, to more than
$1 Trillion
in the U.S. by 2030, if no breakthrough treatments reach the market.
We haven’t had the tools we need to make real progress. Now, we do.
At NYSCF, we use the power of human patient stem
cells to study Alzheimer’s, which is bringing a paradigm shift to the entire field.
Alzheimer’s is a human disease, and we need human cells to really understand what causes it, develop more effective treatments, and find a cure. We have made patient stem cells from
9
DIFFERENT SUBTYPES
OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE,
making them available to scientists around the world and collaborating with
over
40 INSTITUTIONS
.
STEM CELLS ARE THE KEY TO CURING ALZHEIMER’S STUDYING A HUMAN DISEASE IN HUMAN CELLS Treatments that have looked promising in mice have not been able to slow or stop disease progression in humans. Using stem cells, we can generate the actual human brain cells affected by Alzheimer’s — without invasive surgery. This is giving us a living window into how Alzheimer’s-affected cells function, interact, and degenerate, just as they would in the human brain.
PERSONALIZING TREATMENTS FOR ALZHEIMER’S PATIENTS Every patient with Alzheimer’s is different. We are making stem cells from large numbers of individuals with different subtypes of Alzheimer’s. Studying these cells allows us to understand how a patient’s genes affect his/her experience with the disease. By testing different drugs on patient-derived brain cells, we can assess how a specific treatment may affect a specific patient or group of patients.
CURING ALZHEIMER’S BY FINDING ITS ROOT CAUSE The origins of Alzheimer’s remain a mystery. Knowing how brain cells get sick is helping us discover how to save them. Stem cells from Alzheimer’s patients give us a unique window into the root cause of Alzheimer’s, allowing us to observe how the disease develops over time and revealing its underlying mechanisms — ultimately pointing us toward preventions and cures.
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