Ehrlich's
interest in Alzheimer's stems from a conference he attended six years
ago about the systemic effects of bacteria involved in periodontal
disease, including their presence in the brain. He had long studied how
bacteria can form colonies called biofilms, causing chronic inflammation
in places like the middle ear while avoiding detection. He helped
develop special DNA-based tests that could find the bugs and had
identified one culprit in artificial joint loosening as a periodontal
organism, Treponema denticola, that, like syphilis and Lyme disease
bacteria, is a spirochete.
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A small group of scientists, including some in Philadelphia, has been…
