These Scientists Want to Redefine Alzheimer's as a 'Double-Prion' Disease

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) said their work should reclassify Alzheimer's disease, based on their conclusion that its progression is fueled by a specific form of two proteins, reports Gizmodo . The scientists contended these forms should be deemed prions, or potentially infectious proteins that self-replicate by turning their siblings into a misfolded version of themselves. One researcher, Nobel Prize recipient Stanley B. Prusiner, is renowned for establishing prions' causal role in an entire category of rare but universally fatal brain diseases. The UCSF team wants to expand the definition of prions to include amyloid, tau, and any other naturally produced proteins that can alter into a self-replicating form. "It's a very generic definition that can encompass all of these different disease-related proteins capable of propagating through a prion mechanism, but importantly, it also incorporates all of these functional prions we find in yeast and elsewhere," says UCSF Professor Carlo Condello. The researchers also aim to reframe how scientists conceptualize Alzheimer's and other neurological disorders closely associated with abnormal proteins, so they are classified as prion diseases to inform research that can be channeled into the formulation of successful treatments.