There is a strong correlation between amyloid burden at death and the degree of dementia during life. Furthermore, several genetically heritable forms of Alzheimer's disease are tightly linked to mutations in genes that carry instructions for making amyloid proteins. The method came from basic research efforts aimed at understanding how plaques grow inside a human brain. That eventually opened the way to making and growing synthetic plaques. This material is fixed at the bottom of either 96 or 384 wells in plastic plates the size of index cards.
Screeners add a drop of amyloid, tagged with a radioactive label, to each well.
A different drug with the potential to stop such growth can be put in each well. Using the radioactive tag, testers determine how each compound affects growth of the synthetic plaques. Even with such a set-up, lab technicians could not screen a million compounds in a few weeks. It would take the resources of a pharmaceutical or biotechnology company. We've applied for a patent and are talking with several interested organizations.