A promising new Alzheimer’s treatment has been developed from an antibiotic. Work by a research team at Yale indicated the early stages of the disease could be disrupted by a drink containing polymers that were derived from the antibiotic cefixime.

Researchers honed in on discovering what causes amyloid beta plaques, which along with tau proteins, are considered to be the cause of Alzheimer’s when they build up in the brain. Amyloid beta plaques interact with a compound called cellular prion protein, the study found, causing researchers to try to disrupt that action.

A hunt for molecules that can inhibit the interaction led to researchers to the antibiotic cefixime. After several experiments, the antibiotic was allowed to decompose over a few days which resulted in the formation of a polymer that was an effective disruptor to the creation of amyloid beta plaques.

Testing was done on mice, and improved memory was observed along with significant synapse repair, according to newatlas.com.

The compounds will be optimized and studied before human clinical trials can begin.

The study was published in Cell Reports.