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Researchers have taken another crack at a promising approach to stopping Alzheimer's disease that encountered a major hurdle last year. In research published this week in the , scientists have developed a compound that targets a molecular actor known asRAGE, which plays a central role in mucking up the brain tissue of people with the disease.

Scientists at the ÌìÃÀÊÓƵ Medical Center and the University of Southern California synthesized a compound that stops RAGE in mice - reversing amyloid deposits, restoring healthy blood flow in the brain, squelching inflammation, and making old, sick mice smarter. But the scientists caution that the work has a long way to go before it's considered as a possible treatment in people.

In the latest work,  and colleagues screened thousands of compounds for anti-RAGEactivity and identified three that seemed promising. Then the team turned to chemists , and graduate student Nathan Ross. The pair analyzed the compounds' molecular structures, then used that knowledge to create dozens of candidates likely to have activity against RAGE.