“With the whole human genome mapped, the heroic age of gene-hunting is now over. It was an age of heroes, when, driven by the ambition of understanding disease and against formidable odds, scientists battled each other to be first to great discoveries. Rudy Tanzi is one of those heroes, and he and Ann Parson have told his saga with great candor.”—Matt Ridley, author of Genome.
Decoding Darkness:
The Search for the Genetic Causes of Alzheimer’s Disease
by Rudolph E. Tanzi and Ann B. Parson
In the coming years, thousands of aging baby boomers will begin showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease.
Forecasts indicate that by the year 2050, fourteen million Americans will die of it.
Decoding Darkness chronicles the search for the genetic causes of this incurable brain disease and illuminates one particularly promising theory that could hold the key to effective Alzheimer’s drugs. In the process, authors Rudy Tanzi and Ann Parson take us into the daily lives of those trying to conquer Alzheimer’s, offering us a close-up view of high-stakes research and the molecular-genetics revolution.
Most importantly, Decoding Darkness takes us into the world of amyloid, an abnormal protein that is associated with many diseases throughout the body, including type II diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and cystic fibrosis. Researchers believe Alzheimer’s is attributed to the b-amyloid protein, an amyloid disease, and liken amyloid’s accumulation in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients to that of plaque in the coronary arteries of those with heart disease.
Decoding Darkness recounts the string of molecular clues of the amyloid hypothesis, which serves as the basis for therapies already begun in clinical trials. Evidence suggests soon proof that Alzheimer’s is the result of amyloid buildup in the brain—a process which starts decades before dementia shows itself. Accordingly, therapies currently tested may be able to prevent this deadly brain dirt, thus turning Alzheimer’s into a manageable disease.
A medical detective story in the tradition of Paul de Kruif's classic Microbe Hunters and Breakthrough: The Race to Find the Breast Cancer Gene, Decoding Darkness sheds new light on Alzheimer’s and the doctors and scientists who have made its demise their life’s work.
Dr. Rudolph Tanzi is an internationally renowned neurogeneticist spearheading the research for novel therapies of Alzheimer’s disease. He is Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Genetics and Aging Unit.
January 1, 2002 ISBN: 0-7382-0526-5 281 Pages
