Is the key to Alzheimer’s disease lurking, overlooked, in the 100,000-plus scientific papers that have been published on this disease over the last century?
A Texas businessman who lost family members to dementia thinks so, and on Monday he announced that there’s $4 million waiting for the people who find it: Prizes of up to $2 million will be awarded to those who comb the scientific literature, extract the key findings, and synthesize them into one simple explanation of the disease, said James Truchard, 75, an electrical engineer who recently retired as CEO of National Instruments, which he co-founded in 1976.
“The pieces of this puzzle are out there,” Truchard told STAT. ApoE4, beta-amyloid, tau, microbes, inflammation, metabolism, FOXP3, and APP are only some of the genes, peptides, and biological processes that have been identified as contributing to Alzheimer’s, but they have not been synthesized into a “grand unified theory” of Alzheimer’s that might lead to a treatment or cure, he said: “I’m hoping there’s some genius out there who will put them together.”
Learn more: New prize offers $2 million for finding key to Alzheimer’s in past research