'Alzheimer's in dish' model shows promise for accelerating drug discovery

A decade ago, researchers introduced a new model for studying Alzheimer's disease. Known as 'Alzheimer's in a dish,' the model uses cultures of mature brain cells suspended in a gel to recapitulate what takes place in the human brain over 10 to 13 years in just six weeks. But does the model truly produce the same changes that take place in patients? In a new study, researchers created an algorithm to assess, in an unbiased manner, how well models of Alzheimer's disease mimic the function and gene expression patterns seen in patients' brains. Their results identify crucial shared pathways, confirming that the Alzheimer's in a dish model can be used to assess new drugs accurately and rapidly as well as point the way to drug discovery.