Trey Hughes, 7th

“Gum disease-causing bacteria could spur Alzheimer’s”

Published January 23rd, 2019
Summary: A recent study has found bacteria that cause a certain gum disease being found in the
brain of people who have Alzheimer’s. The study further tested this bacteria on mice, and it
surprisingly spurred on changes characteristic of Alzheimer’s. This discovery has been one of
many that have come from researching the pathological and bacterial infections surrounding
Alzheimer’s. However, some scientists are understandably skeptical of saying that this bacteria is
the actual inducer of Alzheimer’s. The study was published in the Science Advances journal. The
study was sponsored by the biotech company Cortexyme Inc out of San Francisco. The co-
founder of the company, Stephen Dominy, is a psychiatrist who treated people with HIV at the
university of California. Along with entrepreneur Casey Lynch, they founded the company to
research the pathological underbelly of Alzheimer’s.

Relation to Topic: This article relates to my project in numerous ways. For one, it is about the
pathology behind Alzheimer’s. It also identifies risk factors of the disease, such as poor dental
health. It also correlates certain topics I have already researched. For instance: neurobiologist
Robert Moir has found that the beta-amyloid protein plaques are a protective barrier against
pathogens in the brain. The team that conducted the research also alluded to developing a drug
for testing against the bacterium. All of these relate to my topic both with the diagnosis and
treatment of Alzheimer’s.

Personal Response: Reading this article elicits a lot of conflicting emotions from me. At one end,
it adds to the number of risk factors that researchers have been able to identify in regards to
Alzheimer’s. However, I know that this discovery is not the end of Alzheimer’s research. It will
take years if not decades to fully identify every risk factor and how those risk factors interactive
with one another. This fact does however make me hopeful. We have just begun a journey on to
finding a cure for Alzheimer’s and are at just the right scientific advancement to see a real
change. Ultimately, time will tell if these findings are of any value. It does make one interested
into the pathological underpinnings of Alzheimer’s/

MLA Citations

KaiserJan, Jocelyn, et al. “Gum Disease–Causing Bacteria Could Spur Alzheimer's.” Science |

AAAS, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 5 Feb. 2019,

www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/01/gum-disease-causing-bacteria-could-spur-alzheimer-s.