In efforts to beat Alzheimer's disease, researchers are looking at existing drugs that could tackle the condition, and a new study identifies two promising candidates that are currently used to treat cancer.
I always wonder whether they have a path of scientific testing and are trying to achieve a specific outcome or are they just creating pills with different mixes of molecular chains and trying to discover what the pills might do.
Both actually - this is called “drug repurposing” where they systematically screen existing drugs (that we already know are safe-ish) against disease models to find new uses, which is way faster and cheeper than developing new compounds from scratch.
I always wonder whether they have a path of scientific testing and are trying to achieve a specific outcome or are they just creating pills with different mixes of molecular chains and trying to discover what the pills might do.
Both actually - this is called “drug repurposing” where they systematically screen existing drugs (that we already know are safe-ish) against disease models to find new uses, which is way faster and cheeper than developing new compounds from scratch.