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ALZHEIMER’S
INTERVENTION PIONEER
MEI MEI HU | 36
Even with scientists as parents,
it wasn’t always obvious that
Mei Mei Hu would end up as the
CEO of United Neuroscience, a
company she co-founded in 2014
to find new ways to fight brain
diseases like Alzheimer’s. She
earned a law degree and joined a
consulting firm before being lured
back to science—experiences
that she credits with giving her
insights into solving complex
problems in creative ways. At
United Neuroscience, she’s urging
her researchers to intervene early
in degenerative brain diseases
by pioneering a new class of
endobody vaccines, which train
the immune system to produce
specific antibodies that some
people naturally make against the
toxic proteins that cause problems
in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
“We know the right target, and
we know intervening earlier in
the disease is better,” says Hu.
“So a vaccine proposition makes
much more sense now.” Animal
studies and early work on a small
number of Alzheimer’s patients
are promising enough that the
company plans to launch a larger-
scale trial in a little over a year. And
prove that sometimes in science,
you don’t need a Ph.D. to make a
breakthrough. ÑAlice Park
PORTRAIT-ILLUSTRATION BY GLUEKIT FOR TIME; DESUS AND MERO: MAMADI DOUMBOUYA; HU: GETTY IMAGES
