Prana chief wins award

The American Academy of Neurology has given its 2003 Potamkin Award for research into Alzheimer's disease to Dr Ashley Bush, co-founder of Melbourne biotechnology company Prana Biotechnology (ASX: PBT).

The prestigious award recognises Bush's "major contribution" to the understanding of the cause, prevention, treatment of, and eventually the cure for Alzheimer's disease, and other related degenerative diseases.

It is also acknowledgement that the Australian researcher's theory about the role of copper and zinc in the genesis of Alzheimer's disease has moved from left-field to centre stage in research into the world's most common neurodegenerative disorder.

As such, it tacitly acknowledges that Prana is on the right track in its efforts to develop new drugs to prevent or treat Alzheimer's disease -- it has already tested a prototype drug, the antibiotic clioquinol, in a Melbourne trial.

Clioquinol, a metal-chelating compound, has already been shown to selectively remove the copper and metal ions that, according to Bush's theory, bind together amyloid plaques, the dense aggregations of a protein fragment, beta-amyloid, that clog the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Bush believes the copper ions in amyloid plaque catalyse the production of hydrogen peroxide, which decomposes to water, releasing a highly reactive hydroxyl radical molecule that is toxic, and eventually deadly to brain cells.

Clioquinol causes amyloid plaque, which is highly resistant to dissolution, to fall apart in vitro.

Bush has also shown that the drug produces a dramatic improvement in memory, and reduces mental confusion, in transgenic laboratory mice engineered to express a mutant human gene that causes an inherited, early-onset form of Alzheimer's disease.

Dr Bush has been invited to the academy's 55th annual meeting on in Hawaii, beginning on March 29, to present a lecture on his work to a session on aging and dementia.

He said he was "extremely honoured" to receive the Potamkin Award, regarded as one of the most prestigious bestowed for research into Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.