‘Dementia killed my mum – I’m fighting to make sure I don’t meet the same fate’

A biologist is bravely raising awareness through innovative research about the disease that killed her mother and could soon affect her.

Sonia Vallabh, from Massachusetts, was powerless to stop dementia from taking her mother from her aged just 51, but has co-authored a paper on new research that hopes to limit the effects of the disease. The paper has been published in Science, a prestigious academic journal affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Sonia was previously a lawyer before she decided to take up a degree in biology following her mother’s death. Her husband Eric also quit being a transportation planner to do the same.

Now, Sonia has worked with Eric and other researchers to look at a way of interrupting the spread of certain types of dementia, brought about by the build-up of proteins around brain cells. This is done by using a gene-editing tool that is delivered to the brain inside a virus.

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It is hoped – tests have only been carried out on mice so far – that the spread in the brain of irreversible forms of dementia such as Parkinson’s, Huntingdon’s and Alzheimer’s could be interrupted by shutting off a gene responsible for making proteins.

“It doesn’t have to be the brain,” Dr. Kiran Musunuru said, referring to the possible potential for the research. Dr Musunuru, a cardiologist and geneticist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, was not involved in the research but wrote a letter that was posted in addition to the paper. They added: “It could be the muscles. It could be the kidneys. It could be really anywhere in the body where we have not easily been able to do these things before.”

“We’re far from this being a drug,” Sonia said, according to USA Today. She added: “There’s always, always reason for caution. Sadly, everything is always more likely to fail than succeed. But there is justifiable reason for optimism.”

There is good cause behind Sonia’s motives, given that the disease that killed her mother was caused by genetics. Sonia also carries the gene and will develop the disease at some point. “The age of onset is extremely unpredictable,” she said. “Your parent’s age of onset doesn’t actually predict anything.”

A study published by Columbia University researchers in 2022 estimates around 10 per cent of adults in the US aged 65 or over have dementia. Another 22 per cent are said to have “mild cognitive impairment.”

People over the age of 50 are also potential risks, with the condition of early-onset dementia appearing to grow among Americans of a certain age. “Early-onset Alzheimer’s is a form of dementia and can appear in people with early onset dementia,” Health insurance federation the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association said.

The insurance company added: “The condition is characterised by progressive brain deterioration, memory loss and an inability to independently care for oneself. In 2017, 37,000 commercially insured Americans between the ages of 30-64 were diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s… The condition has grown by 131%, increasing from 1.3 per 10,000 adults, ages 30-64, in 2013 to 3.0 in 2017.”

The National Institute of Health also predicts that over 6 million Americans are currently living with Alzheimer’s, with this number predicted to rise to 13 million in 2050.

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