Prosetta Biosciences Inc. has presented data on small molecules that inhibit cellular host factors needed for viral replication as a discovery tool to identify molecular interfaces upstream of Alzheimer’s disease cellular pathology.

It has been previously demonstrated that genetic loss-of-function of triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM2) impairs microglia migration, with the TREM2 R47H variant having been linked to increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) due to impaired microglia clustering and enhanced neuronal damage.

Depymed Inc. has received FDA clearance to initiate a phase I trial for DPM-1003 for the treatment of Rett syndrome.

To Steve Hyman, the manual that clinicians currently use to diagnose mental disorders is an active obstacle to getting a scientific understanding of those disorders. Hyman, who is director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute, MIT and Harvard, and a former director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), listed multiple weaknesses of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), whose diagnoses, he said, are “arbitrary, rigid, life-stage and context-insensitive,” as well as blind to the fact that mental disorders exist along a continuum.

Patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) have a median survival of 2 to 5 years. There are 3 FDA-approved drugs for ALS (riluzole, edaravone and Relyvrio [phenylbuturate/taurursodiol]), but they only lead to modest benefit. There are several pathways involved in the disease, but all of them lead to neuroinflammation.

Recent studies have identified HAVCR2, which encodes immune checkpoint molecule TIM-3 (T-cell immunoglobulin mucin receptor 3), as a risk gene for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Deep molecular profiling of cell types in the brain is needed to uncover the mechanisms behind neurodegeneration.