Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street

by Sheelah Kolhatkar

Almost immediately after the trial began, the bapi safety monitoring committee started receiving reports of a worrisome side effect. It was called vasogenic edema, a type of swelling in the back of the brain that was detected through regular brain scans. Gilman was concerned. He had observed brain swelling in the trial of a previous Alzheimer’s drug called AN-1792. In that instance, the drug companies had to halt the trial in 2002 as a result of severe cases of encephalitis among patients, which indicated that the drug was toxic. This time seemed like it might be different. Researchers believed that Alzheimer’s was caused by a buildup in the brain of “sticky protein,” or plaque, called “beta amyloid,” that interfered with communication between nerve cells. Bapi was designed to attack that plaque. Gilman hoped that the swelling in the patients’ brains was a sign that bapi was actually working, by burrowing itself into the patient’s blood vessels and wiping out the plaque.