Alzheimer's disease and cancer don't have much in common on the surface — but at the molecular level, researchers have been finding unexpected overlaps. One of the more intriguing threads is the idea that drugs already approved to treat certain cancers might also have a role in fighting Alzheimer's.
The Connection: Tyrosine Kinases
A class of enzymes called tyrosine kinases plays a central role in cancer biology. Many cancer drugs work by inhibiting these kinases, disrupting the signaling pathways that drive uncontrolled cell growth. It turns out these same kinases are also implicated in the brain's ability to clear toxic proteins — which is exactly the process that breaks down in Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers at Georgetown University, led by Dr. Charbel Moussa, have been exploring several tyrosine kinase inhibitors for their potential to treat neurodegenerative diseases. The Georgetown group had previously shown that tau — the protein that forms toxic tangles in Alzheimer's brains — is a critical part of the cellular "garbage disposal system" that clears accumulated toxic proteins. When tau is abnormally modified (what researchers call phosphorylated tau or p-Tau), it can no longer perform this function.
The Drug: Pazopanib
One study presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference found that pazopanib — an FDA-approved drug for renal cell carcinoma (kidney cancer) — reduced levels of phosphorylated tau in animal models genetically engineered to overproduce human mutant tau. If that reduction in p-Tau translates to reduced toxic tangle formation, it could slow Alzheimer's progression.
This isn't the only cancer drug on the Georgetown team's radar. Their work also led to clinical trials with nilotinib, a leukemia drug, for both Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease.
Why Repurpose Cancer Drugs?
Drug development from scratch is extraordinarily expensive and takes over a decade on average. Finding existing approved drugs that work against Alzheimer's — a strategy called drug repurposing — could dramatically shorten the timeline to treatment. Approved drugs have already cleared safety reviews, which removes one of the biggest hurdles in drug development.
The challenge is that what works in animal models doesn't always translate to humans, and Alzheimer's clinical trials have a notoriously high failure rate. But the logic of the tau pathway, and the growing evidence that tyrosine kinase inhibitors affect it, has given researchers a concrete molecular target to pursue.
The research is ongoing, and no cancer drug has yet been approved as an Alzheimer's treatment. But the intersection of cancer biology and neuroscience is producing new ideas in a field that desperately needs them.
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