Youthful memories

Alkahest Inc. co-founder and Stanford University researcher Tony Wyss-Coray has followed up his earlier discovery of blood factors in the elderly that contribute to cognitive decline by finding an umbilical cord blood factor that may be able to reverse age-related learning and memory impairment. Alkahest has licensed the findings from Stanford and plans to develop the cord blood protein, TIMP2, as a treatment for undisclosed indications.

In Nature and Nature Medicine papers published in 2011 and 2014, respectively, Wyss-Coray's team showed injection of plasma from old mice into young mice impaired spatial learning and memory, while injection of plasma from young mice into old mice had the opposite effect of improving learning and memory. The team zeroed in on about half a dozen factors in elderly mouse blood that were likely responsible for its age-accelerating effects in young mice...