TROY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Research taking place at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute lead to a new potential drug target to slow the progress of Alzheimer’s.

Professor Chunyu Wang and his team performed the most comprehensive study to date of the interactions between a protein that is the most significant risk for late onset Alzheimer’s disease, a sugar molecule that plays a key role in cellular communication.

They said understanding how the disease works on a molecular basis is really critical to finding new treatments, and their goal is to prevent or mitigate enough of the symptoms so people can continue to live independently.