Max Planck Institute and JADO Technologies researchers have found a novel way to fight Alzheimer’s disease by creating an enzyme-inhibiting molecule that sticks to cell membranes, keeping the molecule concentrated in the location where the damaging enzyme is active.

The enzyme beta-secretase cuts up a larger molecule called amyloid precursor protein into amyloid beta, the substance that clumps up in tangles between neurons and causes Alzheimer’s. When the enzyme inhibitor was anchored to cell membranes, keeping it in the cell rather than free-floating, amyloid beta production went down by 50%.

Tests of this method in people are still five to 10 years off. They do not yet have a method for the enzyme inhibitor to cross the blood-brain barrier.