RECENT ADVANCES INPHARMACOTHERAPY OF ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE

The management of Alzheimer's disease (AD) has been a long-standing challenge and area of interest. Advances in knowledge of the pathogenesis of disease and an increase in disease burden have prompted investigation into innovative therapeutics over the last two decades. Current approved therapies are symptomatic treatments having some effect on cognitive function. Therapies that target β-amyloid (Aβ) have been the focus of efforts to develop a disease modification treatment for AD but these approaches have failed to show any clinical benefit so far. Beyond the 'Aβ hypothesis', there are a number of newer approaches to treat AD. This short review will summarize approved drug therapies, recent clinical trials and new approaches for the treatment of AD.

Contact angle of modified fibrovascular bundle of salacca (Salacca sumatrana Becc.) frond by NaOH+Na2SO3 combination

The fibrovascular bundle (FVB) of the salacca frond is one of the potential raw materials in the development of bio-composite technology. The purpose of this study was to investigate the wettability of FVB using the contact angle method after the alkali modification treatment. The method of this research was to use FVB frond of Salacca sumatrana Becc. which was treated with alkaline modification of the combination of NaOH+Na2SO3 at various concentrations. The results showed that the combination of NaOH 1M+Na2SO3 0.4 M had the smallest contact angle, which means that the FVB has a good wettability value compared to the control treatment. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the modification of NaOH+Na2SO3 can increase the wettability of FVB.

Expanded perlite: potential for removing antibiotics from water

This work aims to study the potential of expanded perlite (EP) for amoxicillin (AMX) removal in aqueous solution. For this purpose, chemical, morphological, and textural characteristics of the EP were evaluated, in addition to AMX removal by the adsorption process. The kinetic, isothermal, and thermodynamic parameters were also assessed. The EP presented an isoelectric point of 6.5 and a surface with hydroxyl bands, which favour the adsorption process. Air bubbles were sealed and randomly connected with each other, increasing the surface area relative to the adsorption sites. These non-porous or macro-porous sites demonstrate efficiency in the mechanisms of mass transfer. AMX removal was determined to be a pseudo-second-order process since the adsorption velocity was proportional to the square of the available adsorption sites and indicates heterogeneity in the surface interactions between the adsorbed molecules. Also, the interactions were considered multilayer for low concentrations and monolayer for high concentrations (Sips isotherm). The adsorption process was endothermic and utilised a physical adsorption mechanism. Considering that no modification treatment was applied to the EP, and due to its neutral isoelectric point, macropores, amorphous and dipole induction force (physical adsorption) characteristics, favourable affinity between EP and AMX was observed.