Alzheimer’s progression tracked prior to dementia

A long-term study of older adults led by Anne Fagan (right) has helped validate a new system for identifying and classifying older adults with preclinical Alzheimer’s disease. Many researchers think this stage of the disease, which can last a decade or more, is critical window for slowing or stopping Alzheimer’s treatments.

Unusual comparison nets new sleep loss marker

Paul Shaw, PhD, a researcher at the School of Medicine, has used what he learns in fruit flies to look for markers of sleep loss in humans. But now he has reversed the process in a new paper, taking what he finds in humans back to the flies and identifying a human gene that is more active after sleep deprivation.

New subtype of breast cancer responds to targeted drug

A newly identified cancer biomarker could define a new subtype of breast cancer as well as offer a potential way to treat it, say researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The biomarker is found frequently in breast cancers that have poorer outcomes and can be inhibited by a protein discovered in the same laboratory, which could become an effective drug against the breast cancer type.