Developing a complicated procedure to purify stem cells for human trials was difficult at Scripps, because academic settings and government grants support basic research, not the applied-process development required for such targetedresearch, and Friedlander didn't want to go the typical venture-capital route.
She added that while most treatments for Alzheimer's targeted the disease's early stages, this research showed that even after major brain damage it was still possible to improve learning and memory.
The research should also help speed the development of other gene-targeted drugs for cancer, says Haber, senior author on the New England Journal of Medicine paper and director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center.