Alzheimer’s Disease: A History of Progress and Challenges Toward Discovery of a Cure

Neurodegenerative Diseases like Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) have puzzled researchers and scientists for decades. Through the years, though, advancements in technology and our understanding of biology itself have brought us closer to the end goal of a cure. This review takes a deep dive through the last 30 years of progress and challenges faced by those working on diagnosing and curing this bleak disease, from the initiation of the Human Genome Project to the emergence of genetics testing companies to some of the most recent, promising studies and clinical trials. While researchers and scientists have achieved several important milestones and developed many crucial technologies, the process of diagnosing and treating Alzheimer’s has not come without a long history of legal, ethical, and discriminatory issues, which will be discussed. The discovery of a cure, though, ultimately dismisses these issues, and as of right now, gene therapy seems to be the most promising path to that cure.