A Scientist’s Story: Why Keep Working on Alzheimer’s Disease?

For more than 30 years, Lilly has been working to advance the science of Alzheimer’s disease – time that has been spent discovering and developing tools just to allow us to ask the right questions. While some days I feel like I’m running in place because I’ve been working on the same thing myself for more than two decades, other days I look back and marvel at how far we have come. 

As a Ph.D. student studying neuroscience and a medical student at University of Pennsylvania, I pursued the idea that you could see the pathology of Alzheimer's with diagnostics, pick the right people to treat, and treat them with drugs that reverse the pathology to really see if we can slow and even stop this insidious disease. 

I pursued that research in the lab in academia. I started a company to pursue that work and then came to Lilly. Here I am, still pushing that same dream and the same vision. I'm more confident than ever it's right. I'm more confident than ever that we're close to seeing it manifest in meaningful, new medicines for people with Alzheimer’s. But we're not there yet. 

It's humbling to be the chief scientific and medical officer for Lilly during this unprecedented time in Alzheimer’s research and development. We stand on the shoulders of the scientists and others who have made working on such a complex organ like the brain their life’s work. We are at the forefront of progress in this space thanks to the biomarkers and imaging and blood tests that we've pioneered over decades of work. We also worked to design trials that are robust and more informed than what has been done in the past. 

Science is hard, and it's frustrating. But most of the things we work on—even if they're really good ideas and we really believe in them—won't work. Allow me to predict the future of Alzheimer's research, based on the past of Alzheimer's research: There will be setbacks and disappointments. There will be uncertainty. But the most important thing is that there will be progress.

And then I believe we will launch the next generation of clinical trials, including a trial to see if we can prevent Alzheimer's disease. That's probably where the greatest progress, and promise, lies. With the progress we are making, I believe we might one day be able to prevent Alzheimer's disease.

It's easy to think of the reasons to keep working on this disease. It's the people who are suffering. It's our parents, grandparents, friends and family members who are being robbed of years of life because of this terrible disease. Because it's so hard, and because there's been so little progress, that's the reason we keep working on it. But I can say with more confidence than ever before: We’re close.