Sharon Begley, the superb award-winning science journalist at STATnews, died this month, a non-smoker with lung cancer. STATnews had a memorial piece about her work, that recently ranged from cancer to sickle cell disease, Alzheimer’s (AD) to gene-editing technology. What was fascinating for ADGadfly was that she not only reported on the “results,” but also the process and thinking of groups of scientists working in the field. The NYT also had an obituary.
Her reporting on the goals and priorities in AD research was an important contribution, the reality that focusing grants and funding on one aspect means that other research ideas go begging. The focus has been on the Amyloid Cascade Hypothesis, with its proponents controlling research funding. That line of inquiry has not been useful for disease-modifying therapies so far.
In fact, JAMA Jan 19 reported that atabecestat, which works along the amyloid precursor protein pathway, actually made people cognitively worse, so the trial was stopped early. Two of the authors are part of the leadership of the NIA Alzheimer Clinical Trials Consortium. Begley’s article quotes Dr. Paul Aisen defending the research focus and strategy:
The maddening saga of how an Alzheimer’s ‘cabal’ thwarted progress toward a cure for decades
STATnews seems to have released her work for open access. Hopefully the link above will work.
