CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A drug being tested to treat cancer also might be used to slow memory loss and the cause of Alzheimer's disease, according to a West Virginia researcher.

"This is the first therapy to have two major benefits. It provides symptomatic relief from the memory loss of Alzheimer's disease and protects against the degeneration of the neurons that causes the memory loss," said Dr. Daniel Alkon, scientific director of the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute in Morgantown.

He is a co-author of a paper about the study that appears in Tuesday's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.

The authors acknowledge more study of bryostatin is needed, but add it is reasonable to think the drug could prevent progression of Alzheimer's associated with the buildup of certain plaques in the brain. The drug was developed to treat cancer.

More than 4 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's, a disease that progressively kills brain cells.

Bryostatin faces more study and testing before it might be used to treat Alzheimer's. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has already approved it for some cancer trials, which could speed the approval process, Alkon said.

For the study, mice were bred to carry human genes causing Alzheimer's. Some were injected with bryostatin, a control group was not.

Researchers found that bryostatin helped mice break down proteins involved in the development of amyloid plaques, protein deposits in the brain associated with Alzheimer's disease. The study found lower levels of the precursors to these plaques in mice treated with the drug.

The rate of premature death among these mice was also lower. Tests using the drug in tissue samples from Alzheimer's patients showed encouraging results as well, Alkon said.

Scientists with the Morgantown institute worked with researchers in Illinois and Belgium.