October 2007
by Art Fischman

At Merck, Alzheimer's research has recently focused on determining if there are specific changes or pathologies that are associated with Alzheimer's in the cerebrovasculature - the vascular system of the brain. This avenue of inquiry was the subject of a two-day symposium recently held in Boston and cosponsored by Merck Research Laboratories (MRL) Boston and the Harvard Neurodiscovery Center of the Harvard Medical School. The symposium - entitled The Role of the Cerebrovasculature in Alzheimer's Disease Pathology - brought together Merck employees with academics and clinicians from universities and teaching hospitals in the Boston area.

"We had several goals for the symposium," says Dr. Mark Shearman, executive directive, Neuroscience Drug Discovery, MRL Boston. "One was to provide the perspectives of a group of experts in the field on a number of different aspects of the functional integrity of the neurovascular unit and how that could impact the onset or progression of Alzheimer's disease. Another was to make the immediate academic community in the Boston / Cambridge area more aware of Merck's interests and work in the area."

Merck's main goal in conducting the symposium, however, was to learn how MRL might target certain aspects of the cerebrovasculature (commonly referred to as the "blood-brain barrier") to identify new therapeutic targets for Alzheimer's disease. The blood-brain barrier is a biological barrier composed principally of endothelial cells, surrounded by a wall of smooth muscle. As Dr. Shearman explains, "Most people think of it as small capillaries that supply blood to the brain. The brain is normally very effective at excluding most things from the brain itself, because the cerebrovasculature provides a very well controlled barrier for substances entering and exiting the brain. In Alzheimer's disease, this control can break down."

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