Although the fruit fly has been used to study genetics for 100 years, it is only recently that the fly has become an important tool in the battle against disease. Medical researchers around the world are now working to create fruit flies that develop human diseases so that they can study the genes involved and test the effectiveness of new drugs. 'Some of the first diseases that have been modelled in the fruit fly are those that affect the human brain', says Damian Crowther of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research. The Cambridge group, led by David Lomas, is among the first to develop a fruit fly model of Alzheimer's disease, the most common cause of dementia. 'Our fruit fly shows many of the signs of Alzheimer's disease that are found in human patients', says Damian.
The Cambridge group has followed up on previous work showing that people who produce too much of a toxic peptide (the Aß peptide) in their brains go on to develop Alzheimer's disease. 'We gave the fly the gene for the Aß peptide, and they accumulate peptide just like human patients', explains Damian. The team of scientists can watch the fly brain deteriorate in the same way that the human brain is damaged by Alzheimer's disease.
