RESEARCH NEWS 2001-06-28 Research News 28 June, 2001. Researchers at Japan's Juntendo University School of Medicine report in tomorrow's Cell that they have identified a novel substrate for the parkin E3 ligase function (see previous story below.) Yuzuru Imai, Ryosuke T
RESEARCH NEWS 2001-06-28 Research News The two most prominent genes linked to inherited, monogenic Parkinson's disease-α-synuclein and parkin-are generally thought to be unconnected to each other because the forms of PD they cause are clinically and neuropathologically diffe
RESEARCH NEWS 2001-06-21 Research News The γ-secretase enzyme activity is a therapeutic target in Alzheimer's disease. Yet its promise of lowering the Aβ42 burden has been under a cloud since 1999, when Bart De Strooper and other scientists found that the enzyme also cleaves
RESEARCH NEWS 2001-06-15 Research News The gene mutation that causes Huntington's disease has been known for many years, yet the function of the encoded protein, huntingtin, and the pathogenic mechanism of the mutant protein, have remained frustratingly elusive. Various stud
RESEARCH NEWS 2001-06-14 Research News Harvard researchers have expressed the wildtype and mutant forms of human tau protein in Drosophila, creating a new model for one aspect of Alzheimer’s disease pathology as well as for tauopathies. In tomorrow’s Science, Mel Feany and collab
RESEARCH NEWS 2001-06-14 Research News Abnormal forms of the prion protein are thought to be the infective agent responsible for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or "mad cow disease") and its human form, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). The pathogenic pri
RESEARCH NEWS 2001-05-31 Research News Obesity and its frequent cousin, insulin-resistant diabetes, so clearly increase the risk for atherosclerosis that the whole disease complex has been called metabolic syndrome. The underlying mechanisms for this unhappy connection remain poo
RESEARCH NEWS 2001-05-30 Research News Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS; also known as Lou Gehrig's disease) is the most common motor neuron disease in humans, affecting one in 1,000. It results in a progressive loss of motor neuron function, leading to paralysis and death
RESEARCH NEWS 2001-05-25 Research News Aggregates of proteins are a common feature in many neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, fronto-temporal dementia and ALS. Their role in contributing to these diseases remains unclear.
RESEARCH NEWS 2001-05-25 Research News While much Alzheimer's research has focused on mechanisms that result in the formation of amyloid plaques, a growing body of evidence indicates that processes that break down Aβ are just as important, and may offer novel targets for the
RESEARCH NEWS 2001-05-24 Research News A study in the June issue of Nature Neuroscience points a finger at proteins of the Shc family as the critical link in signaling neural stem cells to either remain in their pluripotent form or differentiate into mature neurons. Italian resea