Researchers at the University of Cambridge have designed antibodies that target the protein deposits in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease, and stop their production.
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.
Researchers have identified how alpha-synuclein, the protein associated with Parkinson’s Disease, enables communication between neurons in the brain, offering important clues about what may be happening to patients when the protein malfunctions.
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.
Observation of the point at which proteins associated with Parkinson’s disease become toxic to brain cells could help identify how and why people develop the disease, and aid in the search for potential treatments.
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.
How does the brain make connections, and how does it maintain them? Cambridge neuroscientists and mathematicians are using a variety of techniques to understand how the brain ‘wires up’, and what it might be able to tell us about degeneration in later life.
Today, we commence a month-long focus on neuroscience. To begin, Ed Bullmore, Bill Harris and Dervila Glynn describe how this area of research is transforming our understanding of the healthy brain and promising new treatments for devastating disorders that affect millions of people.
Scientists at the University of Cambridge have identified a new property of essential proteins which, when it malfunctions, can cause the build up, or ‘aggregation’, of misshaped proteins and lead to serious diseases.
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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