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Janet van Eersel

Pre-clinical development of next-generation tau aggregation-inhibitors for the treatment of dementia

Portrait of Dr Van Eersel
  • Award

    Dementia Australia Research Foundation Mid-Career Research Fellowship

  • Status

    In progress

  • Start Date

    1 March 2021

About the project

Alzheimer's disease and Frontotemporal dementia are two common causes of dementia, for which there is no effective treatment or cure. In the brains of people with these disorders, abnormal clumping of a protein known as tau is observed. These tau clumps start off small, but over time mature, grow and form large tau tangles. Historically, it was thought that tau tangles cause cells within the brain to die. However, new research suggests that it is the smaller, initial tau clumps which are responsible for this. This has major implications, as current drugs in clinical trials are known to target tau tangles and, by causing them to disassemble, these drugs may in fact cause the release of smaller toxic tau clumps that were safely trapped away.

This project aims to develop the next-generation of tau-targeting drugs which act specifically on the smaller, toxic tau clumps but NOT on tau tangles. We believe this will lead to greater clinical benefits. We will use several newly-developed, cutting-edge technologies that can detect tau clumps with better sensitivity. Promising candidates will then be tested in various models to determine their potential. This will lay the groundwork for, hopefully, future clinical trial testing in patients.

Where are they now?

Dr Janet van Eersel is a Senior Lecturer and Group Leader of the Drug Discovery research team within the Dementia Research Centre at Macquarie University.

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Last updated
30 November 2023