Scientists have built new chemical tools to study a poorly understood protein linked to Alzheimer’s disease — a step that could help uncover fresh targets for future treatments.
Researchers at Vanderbilt University’s Warren Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery created two compounds aimed at the TAOK protein family, which has been tied to Alzheimer’s but was hard to investigate for lack of good research tools. The work was published August 3, 2026 in ACS Chemical Neuroscience.
Two opposite tools
One compound, VU6083859, is the first selective inhibitor of the TAOK-1 protein — it turns the protein’s activity down. The other, VU6080195, does the opposite, activating all three members of the TAOK family. Having tools that both block and boost a protein lets scientists tease apart what it actually does in the brain.
Tools, not medicines
Importantly, these are research probes, not drugs — they are not suitable to give to patients. Their value is in enabling the basic biology that has to come first. “Our understanding of TAOK proteins largely centers around their inhibition, so we are excited at the prospect of studying the neurological effects of increasing their activity,” researcher Daniel Schultz said. The activator, in particular, opens a direction few had been able to explore — the kind of groundwork that can eventually point toward new therapeutic strategies.