A team of scientists, including researchers from Penn State, have found that a drug being developed for cancer treatment could also lead to a new treatment for Alzheimer's and other diseases.

Melanie McReynolds, the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Early Career Chair in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State, was co-author of the paper.

McReynolds said the brain needs a lot of glucose to fuel its metabolic processes. But the research found that in mice with Alzheimer's, there was blockage in the use of glucose.

"So with the brain not being able to have this fuel source, it really can't perform a lot of its mechanisms or its processes, which, of course, leads to cognitive decline and ultimately disease," she said.

The drugs being tested block an enzyme, called IDO1. The researchers found that by blocking it, they may be able to treat diseases like Alzheimer's in their early stages.

"With treating with this IDO1 inhibitor, which we identified, it basically restored the usage of the brain to use glucose as a fuel," McReynolds said.

She said a lot of treatments are focused on the end stage of disease.

"But with this treatment option at early signs, we can stop it before it gets that bad," she said. "So it's really exciting."

McReynolds said her lab will continue research into how people can have healthier aging. "Is it that our metabolism declines with aging? Does aging make us more vulnerable to the events of stress that impacts our metabolism? What comes first?"

She said that's important to understand because to have healthier aging means understanding and combating neurological decline.

The finding was published in the journal Science. It included researchers from Stanford. The next step will be testing the IDO1 inhibitors in Alzheimer's patients.