The brains of Alzheimer's disease victims are peppered with neuritic plaques—microscopic, spherical structures containing, among other
things, deposits of β amyloid peptide, dead and dying neurons and evidence
of inflammation...
Synucleins are small cytoplasmic proteins that are found
in synaptic terminals. They are present in senile plaques and Lewy bodies
(features of Alzheimer's disease and familial Parkinson's disease)...
(From Nature Biotechnology press release.) Each cell in our bodies contains 46 chromosomes. But one day far in the future, doctors may give us an extra miniature chromosome containing therapeutic genes to treat disease...
Breeding “knockout” mice is a prized tool for evaluating
the function of genes, but it is a ponderous and costly tool, consuming
many months and thousands of dollars to create each new knockout strain...
A gene on the long arm of chromosome 6 has been linked to
an inherited form of Parkinson’s disease, called autosomal recessive
juvenile parkinsonism (AR-JP)...
Scientists often complain that scientific journals
take too long to review manuscripts, and that subscription prices are unaffordable. A new journal devoted to Alzheimer's disease research, Alzheimer's Reports...
Researchers trying to study the role of presenilin-1
(PS1) in Alzheimer's pathogenesis have been stymied by the fact that presenilin
knockout mice die before birth...
Two recent papers describe the processes involved in
the final stages of apoptotic cell death. During apoptosis, enzymes known as caspases break down cellular proteins, causing severe morphological changes and cell shrinkage...
A pathologic form of prion protein is believed to
cause scrapie, bovine spongiform encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
The normal function of prion protein is yet unknown, but a recent study
by Hans Kretzschmar...
An innovative microscope has been developed which provides scientists with a new window through which to explore the dynamics of molecular order and disorder in living cells and other quasi-liquid systems...
Researchers at California-based Affymetrix have analyzed
the activity of every gene in the yeast genome in a single experiment using
a new "DNA chip." This remarkable technological feat hints of
a future...
Scientists working in Oxford University and Duke
University Medical Center this week reported the discovery of two new
genetic risk factors for late-onset Alzheimer’s disease...
A history of brain injury raises a person’s risk of Alzheimer’s disease,
and many researchers now suspect that the brain’s inflammatory
responses to injury may magnify the neurodegenerative process...
Researchers in Dr. John Q. Trojanowski's lab at
the University of Pennsylvania have discovered a new type of lesion in
the brains of Alzheimer's patients...