There was lots of amyloid research in the Alzheimer’s space before the fake 2006 paper, and in the hypothetical where it got caught right away we would probably still see a bunch of R&D built around beta-amyloid oligomers, including aducanumab. You can tell because nobody was able to reproduce the work on the *56 oligomer, and they kept on working on other beta-amyloid oligomer ideas anyway. It’s bad, but “16 years of Alzheimer’s research is based on fraud” is a wild overstatement. See Derek Lowe’s more detailed backgrounder for more on this.
Derek Lowe is worth keeping up with in any case IMO, he is basically the Matt Levine of organic chemistry.
There was lots of amyloid research in the Alzheimer’s space before the fake 2006 paper, and in the hypothetical where it got caught right away we would probably still see a bunch of R&D built around beta-amyloid oligomers, including aducanumab. You can tell because nobody was able to reproduce the work on the *56 oligomer, and they kept on working on other beta-amyloid oligomer ideas anyway. It’s bad, but “16 years of Alzheimer’s research is based on fraud” is a wild overstatement. See Derek Lowe’s more detailed backgrounder for more on this.
Derek Lowe is worth keeping up with in any case IMO, he is basically the Matt Levine of organic chemistry.