Fragment foils Alzheimer’s protein

Chemists have synthesized a protein fragment that, in test-tube studies, disrupts the formation of the fiber networks suspected to be a cause of Alzheimer’s disease.

In the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, a protein called beta-amyloid assembles into fibers, which clump together to create networks of fibers called plaques. In the first step toward this fiber formation, the stringlike proteins bind along their sub-nanometer lengths, says Robert P.