Engineering proteins to help counter devastating diseases
Meredith Jackrel, assistant professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, recently received a five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and another from the Longer Life Foundation to study protein disaggregases — evolved protein forms that mitigate protein misfolding — as a strategy to combat neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and ALS.
Pushing the imaging envelope
An engineer at Washington University in St. Louis plans to push the envelope of microscopic imaging, to better visualize the molecules involved in Alzheimer’s disease.
WashU Expert: Physician assisted death for Alzheimer’s, dementia?
As Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia continue to become more prevalent, it may not be long before there is a push for legalizing physician-assisted death in dementia cases in the United States. American officials must thoroughly consider the moral and social consequences of such an action, says an expert on medical ethics at Washington University in St. Louis.
The shape-shifting protein behind Alzheimer’s disease
New research from Washington University in St. Louis shows that the protein behind Alzheimer’s disease shape-shifts, changing its internal structure in order to infiltrate brain cells and become toxic.
Early signs of Alzheimer’s: Navigating may hold key
Long before Alzheimer’s disease can be diagnosed clinically, increasing difficulties building cognitive maps of new surroundings may herald the eventual clinical onset of the disorder, finds new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
Longer-lived imaging agents could hasten Alzheimer’s research
A chemist at Washington University in St. Louis hopes to develop bifunctional compounds that can be both therapeutic and diagnostic agents for Alzheimer’s disease. In the first role, they would block the metal-mediated formation of amyloid beta oligomers; in the second, they would be loaded with a long-lived radioistope (Cu-64) and employed as PET imaging agents.
Atherosclerosis is Alzheimer’s disease of blood vessels, study suggests
Studying mice and tissue samples from the arteries of patients with atherosclerosis, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggest this plaque accumulation is driven, at least in part, by processes similar to the plaque formation implicated in brain diseases such Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
Extra sleep fixes memory problems in flies with Alzheimer’s-like condition
Many studies have linked more sleep to better memory,
but new research in fruit flies at Washington University School of
Medicine in St. Louis demonstrates that extra sleep helps the brain
overcome catastrophic neurological defects that otherwise would block
memory formation.
New target identified in fight against Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis
Highlighting a potential target in the treatment of
multiple sclerosis (MS) and Alzheimer’s disease, new research suggests
that triggering a protein found on the surface of brain cells may help
slow the progression of these and other neurological diseases.
Alzheimer’s research awarded $30 million
Two major Alzheimer’s disease studies at Washington
University School of Medicine in St. Louis have received federal funding
totaling $30 million over the next five years.
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