Jason Karlawish, MD, professor of Medicine and Medical Ethics, with the Penn Memory Center, speaks with NPR's Talk of the Nation about patient requests for skin cancer drugs to be prescribed off label for Alzheimer's disease. A medical study in Science finds that an FDA-approved skin cancer drug, marketed as Targretin, can reduce Alzheimer's-like symptoms in mice, but it is unclear if the drug will have the same effect on humans. Some researchers want to begin testing the drug for its efficacy in treating patients with AD. "I don't even know what dose you would take to see if it gets into the brain, where you could then begin to measure if it positively affects the brain or not," Karlawish said. "The first studies that need to be done in humans are studies that would involve a few volunteers to learn how the drug penetrates the brain and affects amyloid levels, and then more studies to learn if it is a safe and effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease."