Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Neurodegenerative disease

Silencing tau to treat early Alzheimer’s disease

An antisense oligonucleotide therapy substantially reduced tau expression in a phase 1b trial; whether this translates to clinical improvement remains to be seen, but it could have far-reaching implications for neurodegenerative diseases more broadly.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Tau PET across the AD continuum.

Claire Yballa and Daniel Schonhaut, University of California San Francisco

References

  1. Budd Haeberlein, S. et al. J. Prev. Alzheimers Dis. 9, 197–210 (2022).

    CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. van Dyck, C. H. et al. N. Engl. J. Med. 388, 9–21 (2023).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Mummery, C. J. et al. Nat. Med. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02326-3 (2023).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Wu, M. et al. Mol. Psychiatry https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-023-02024-z (2023).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Nelson, P. T. et al. J. Neuropathol. Exp. Neurol. 71, 362–381 (2012).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Teng, E. et al. JAMA Neurol. 79, 758–767 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Roberson, E. D. et al. Science 316, 750–754 (2007).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. DeVos, S. L. et al. Sci. Transl. Med. https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aag0481 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  9. Novak, G. et al. J. Alzheimers Dis. 49, 1123–1134 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Olsson, B. et al. J. Neurol. 266, 2129–2136 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  11. FDA. https://go.nature.com/3AwPoAt (accessed 5 April 2023).

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gil D. Rabinovici.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

P.A.L. receives research search support from the National Institute on Aging of the US National Institutes of Health and from the Alzheimer’s Association Part the Cloud Partnership. He is the FDA investigational new drug sponsor for a clinical trial of a drug supplied by Biohaven. He has served as a clinical site primary investigator for trials sponsored by Woolsey, Alector, Transposon and AbbVie. He also currently serves as a clinical site sub-investigator for clinical trials sponsored by Lilly, Eisai and Biogen. G.D.R. receives research support from the US National Institutes of Health, the Alzheimer’s Association, the American College of Radiology, the Rainwater Charitable Foundation and the Alliance for Therapies in Neuroscience. He has served as a paid scientific advisor to Alector, Eli Lilly, GE Healthcare, Genentech, Johnson & Johnson Merck, and Roche.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Ljubenkov, P.A., Rabinovici, G.D. Silencing tau to treat early Alzheimer’s disease. Nat Med 29, 1320–1321 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02357-w

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-023-02357-w

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing