Targeting β-amyloid and tau in Alzheimer's disease

Philip Tipton, MD, Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, FL, discusses the development of a precision medicine approach for treating neurodegenerative diseases. The novel Alzheimer's disease drugs targeting specific proteins implicated in the pathophysiological mechanisms of the disease illustrate a precision medicine approach. Most clinical trials have focused on therapies targeting different stages of β-amyloid plaque development to understand which aspects of the β-amyloid cascade should be targeted. In addition to anti-β-amyloid drugs, treatments targeting tau are also under investigation, including a clinical trial combining lecanemab, an anti-β-amyloid monoclonal antibody, with the anti-microtubule binding region (MTBR) tau antibody E2814 in dominantly inherited Alzheimer's disease. This interview took place at the American Academy of Neurology 2022 Congress in Seattle, WA.