STEM-Talk: Karl Herrup on shortcomings of Alzheimer’s research

Published 2.6.25

After more than a century of research, the underlying cause of Alzheimer’s remains a mystery. Dr. Karl Herrup has made a career of trying to unravel that mystery.

For decades, the leading theory has been that abnormal amyloid plaques in the brain are the central cause of the disease.

On this episode of STEM-Talk — available now — Herrup shares his view that the amyloid cascade hypothesis is not only flawed but also could be holding back research for a cure.

“At root, the problem stems from trying to make a complicated disease simple,” Herrup says. “At a more practical level, the problem goes back to the very first description of the disease itself by the guy whose name is on the disease.”

The history of assumptions made about the disease, and the impacts those assumptions have had since is just one aspect of this fascinating conversation.

Herrup is a professor of neurobiology and an investigator in the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He is also the author of How Not to Study a Disease: The Story of Alzheimer’s.

In this episode we learn:

  • How investment in science enrichment education in the wake of the launch of Sputnik influenced Herrup as a child growing up in Pittsburgh, Pa.
  • How a series of “happy accidents” fueled his career including studying neuroscience at Stanford University, studying developmental neurogenetics, and pursuing a secondary post-doctoral degree in Switzerland, working at Yale, spending several years at a university in Hong Kong, and ultimately returning to his hometown to start the lab he currently runs.
  • How his interactions with Alzheimer’s researchers, led him to see similarities in these diseases of aging and the developmental disorders he was already studying.
  • The differences between Alzheimer’s and dementia broadly and clinically.
  • The failures of the amyloid cascade hypothesis in three basic tests, and an alternative hypothesis Herrup proffers.
  • The emergent nature of the brain and the potential for this emergence to help explain Alzheimer’s disease.
  • The fact that there is no solution to the problem of dementia that does not rely on an understanding of the aging process.
  • A series of studies that Herrup conducted on the benefits of exposure to Japanese gardens on the clinical symptoms of Alzheimer’s and much more.

“I don’t know that I would recommend my life trajectory to anyone, but I would recommend the willingness to be open to new ideas and to change,” Herrup says. “It’s scary, but the one thing I’m most proud about is that I would squelch that fear and look at the opportunity.”

Listen to STEM-Talk wherever you enjoy podcasts.

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