The University of Cambridge has been announced as one of the centres that will form the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) alongside Cardiff University, the University of Edinburgh, Imperial College London and King’s College London.
A new super-resolution imaging technique allows researchers to track how surface changes in proteins are related to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
It's over a hundred years since the first case of Alzheimer’s disease was diagnosed. Since then we’ve learned a great deal about the protein ‘tangles’ and ‘plaques’ that cause the disease. How close are we to having effective treatments – and could we even prevent dementia from occurring in the first place?
A specific gene expression pattern maps out which parts of the brain are most vulnerable to Alzheimer’s disease, decades before symptoms appear, and helps define the molecular origins of the disease.
Cambridge researchers have identified – and shown that it may be possible to control – the mechanism that leads to the rapid build-up of the disease-causing ‘plaques’ that are characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease.
The UK has seen a 20% fall in the incidence of dementia over the past two decades, according to new research from England, led by the University of Cambridge, leading to an estimated 40,000 fewer cases of dementia than previously predicted. However, the study, published today in Nature Communications, suggests that the dramatic change has been observed mainly in men.
An approved anti-cancer drug successfully targets the first step in the toxic chain reaction that leads to Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting that treatments may be found to lower the risk of developing the neurodegenerative condition.
The number of people with dementia – both new cases and total numbers with the disease – appears to be stabilising in some Western European countries despite populations ageing, in direct contrast to the ‘dementia epidemic’ reported in some recent studies. Professor Carol Brayne and Yu-tzu Wu from the Cambridge Institute of Public Health explore what this means.
Researchers have identified how proteins that play a key role in Alzheimer’s disease are linked in a pathway that controls its progression, and that drugs targeting this pathway may be a potential new way of treating the disease.
New funding will support fundamental research into the molecular processes underlying human disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, and enable new ways to combat them.
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