Lou Gehrig's Disease or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a neurological disorder characterized by progressive degeneration of motor neuron cells in the spinal cord and brain, which ultimately results in paralysis and death. The disease takes its less-scientific name from Lou Gehrig, a baseball player with the New York Yankees in the late 1920s and 1930s, who was forced to retire in 1939 as a result of the loss of motor control caused by the disease.
In 1991, a team of researchers linked familial ALS to chromosome 21. Two years later, the SOD1 gene was identified as being associated with many cases of familial ALS. The enzyme coded for by SOD1 carries out a very important function in cells: it removes dangerous superoxide radicals by converting them into non-harmful substances. Defects in the action of this enzyme mean that the superoxide radicals attack cells from the inside, causing their death. Several different mutations in this enzyme all result in ALS, making the exact molecular cause of the disease difficult to ascertain.
Recent research has suggested that treatment with drugs called antioxidants may benefit ALS patients. However, since the molecular genetics of the disease are still unclear, a significant amount of research is still required to design other promising treatments for ALS.
Stem cells show great potential to enable treatments for conditions such as spinal injuries or Lou Gehrig's disease, and also as research tools. One of the greatest problems slowing such work is that researchers have found major complications in purifying cell mixtures, for instance to remove stem cells that can cause tumors from cells developed for use in medical treatments.
Although several genes have been linked to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), it is still unknown how they cause this progressive neurodegenerative disease. In a new study, Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) researchers have demonstrated that two ALS-associated genes work in tandem to support the long-term survival of motor neurons.
The Muscular Dystrophy Association today announced funding, totaling $13.7 million, for 40 new research initiatives targeting nearly two dozen progressive neuromuscular diseases.
Researchers claim to have found a common cause behind the mysterious and deadly affliction of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The discovery could pave the way to new treatments for the devastating disorder whose victims include top physicist Professor Stephen Hawking.
The underlying disease process of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS and Lou Gehrig's disease), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that paralyzes its victims, has long eluded scientists and prevented development of effective therapies. Scientists weren't even sure all its forms actually converged into a common disease process.
In a kind of molecular gymnastics, scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have devised a gene therapy cocktail that has the potential to treat some inherited diseases associated with "misfolded" proteins.
By isolating cells from patients' spinal tissue within a few days after death, researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed a new model of the paralyzing disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Researchers from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have identified a mutation on the SIGMAR1 gene associated with the development of juvenile amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Preliminary results from the first four brains donated to the Canadian Sports Concussion Project at the Krembil Neuroscience Centre, TorontoWesternHospital, reveal that two of the four former Canadian Football League (CFL) players suffered from a brain disease known as Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), while two did not show signs of CTE.
Neuralstem, Inc. announced that it has received notice of allowance for U.S. Patent Applications 12/939,897 and 12/939,914 entitled: "Compositions to Effect Neuronal Growth."
Amorfix Life Sciences, a product development company focused on diagnostics and therapeutics for misfolded protein diseases, today announced its operational and financial results for the year ended March 31, 2011, as well as financial results for the fourth quarter.
A new advance by UCLA biochemists has brought scientists one step closer to developing treatments that could delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease and prevent the sexual transmission of HIV.
Adeona Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a developer of innovative medicines for serious central nervous system diseases, announced today that it has expanded its pipeline of proprietary zinc-based therapies to include a planned Phase IIb clinical trial of patients suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease.
An international team of scientists led by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have used induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) to reveal for the first time how reduced levels of a specific protein may play a central role in causing at least one inherited form of the disease.
Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is the leading genetic cause of death in children under 2, with no treatment other than supportive care. In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at Children's Hospital Boston show how loss or mutation of the SMA gene causes progressive muscle degeneration and weakness, and suggest a promising approach to treating the condition, sometimes referred to as a "Lou Gehrig's disease of babies."
Neuralstem, Inc. announced that it has signed an exclusive agency licensing agreement with Summit Pharmaceuticals International Corporation, of Tokyo, Japan (SPI), a wholly owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Corporation Group.
One of the beneficial compounds found in green tea has a powerful ability to increase the number of "regulatory T cells" that play a key role in immune function and suppression of autoimmune disease, according to new research in the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University.
Pity the lowly astrocyte, the most common cell in the human nervous system. Long considered to be little more than putty in the brain and spinal cord, the star-shaped astrocyte has found new respect among neuroscientists who have begun to recognize its many functions in the brain, not to mention its role in a range of disorders of the central nervous system.
A new program developed by researchers at Pennsylvania State College of Medicine and Pennsylvania State University may make it easier for patients with moderate/severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to make critical decisions regarding their care as their disease worsens.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine have discovered a steroid hormone that inhibits inflammation in the brain. The findings, to be published in the May 13 issue of the journal Cell, have implications for understanding the exaggerated inflammatory responses that are characteristic features of numerous neurodegenerative diseases.
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