Huntington’s Disease News and Research

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FDA advisory committee vote 16-0 for first even gene therapy for rare blindness

A panel of advisors to the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has voted unanimously in favor of an experimental gene therapy to treat patients with a rare kind of hereditary blindness.

16 Oct 2017

Expert highlights CRISPR’s applications, limitations, and ethical concerns

"Good morning, doctor, I am here for my gene editing appointment." In the future, could this be a greeting heard in physician offices around the world? With the introduction of CRISPR technology, genetic material can now be more easily and precisely edited, even creating changes that can subsequently be inherited by offspring.

1 Aug 2017

Experts develop first freely available data network for Huntington's disease research

Huntington's disease is a hereditary disorder of the nervous system caused by a faulty gene on chromosome four.

13 Jul 2017

Pyk2 deficits contribute to memory problems in Huntington’s disease mouse model

Researchers from the Institute of Neurosciences of the UB and from IDIBAPS together with a team from the University Pierre and Marie Curie and the Institute du Fer à Moulin, published a study in Nature Communications, which demonstrates that the regulation in Pyk2, a protein-tyrosine kinase, causes alterations of the synaptic plasticity involved in memory tasks, associated with the hippocampus in mouse models of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Huntington's.

13 Jun 2017

Scientists to develop drugs for treating cognitive deficits in Huntington's disease sufferers

Scientists at the University of Sussex have started work on a multi-million pound project to develop drugs to treat the debilitating loss of cognitive function associated with Huntington's disease.

19 May 2017

Neurobiologists uncover reason for defects in the blood-brain barrier of Huntington's disease patients

By using induced pluripotent stem cells to create endothelial cells that line blood vessels in the brain for the first time for a neurodegenerative disease, University of California, Irvine neurobiologists and colleagues have learned why Huntington's disease patients have defects in the blood-brain barrier that contribute to the symptoms of this fatal disorder.

17 May 2017

Easing cellular traffic jams in Huntington’s disease may save brain cells

Working with mouse, fly and human cells and tissue, Johns Hopkins researchers report new evidence that disruptions in the movement of cellular materials in and out of a cell's control center - the nucleus- appear to be a direct cause of brain cell death in Huntington's disease, an inherited adult neurodegenerative disorder.

5 May 2017

New study finds link between neural tube defects in infants and neurodegenerative diseases

A new study has found a link between neurological birth defects in infants commonly found in pregnant women with diabetes and several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases.

10 Apr 2017

EPFL scientists develop synthetic methods to crack code of Huntington's disease

Huntington's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that causes patients to lose their ability to move, speak, and even think. It is caused by a gene mutation that produces an abnormal form of the protein huntingtin, which aggregates and builds up inside neurons of the cortex and striatum.

23 Mar 2017

Rutgers study discovers that chemical used to detect amyloid plaques increases roundworm lifespan

While many anti-aging drugs don't live up to their claim, a tightly replicated study by Rutgers and a group of researchers from around the country discovered that a chemical used to detect amyloid plaques found in the brains of those with Alzheimer's extended the lifespan of thousands of roundworms similar in molecular form, function and genetics to humans.

10 Mar 2017

IU study reveals new compounds with potential to boost enzyme that could protect against dementia

A study by Indiana University researchers has identified 24 compounds -- including caffeine -- with the potential to boost an enzyme in the brain shown to protect against dementia.

7 Mar 2017

Stem cells strictly abide by innate developmental clocks, study shows

The mystery of what controls the range of developmental clocks in mammals — from 22 months for an elephant to 12 days for an opossum — may lie in the strict time-keeping of pluripotent stem cells for each unique species.

28 Feb 2017

Study finding suggests new ways in which genetic mutations may cause brain disorders

Many kids say they love their mom and dad equally, but there are times when even the best prefers one parent over the other. The same can be said for how the body's cells treat our DNA instructions. It has long been thought that each copy - one inherited from mom and one from dad - is treated the same. A new study from scientists at the University of Utah School of Medicine shows that it is not uncommon for cells in the brain to preferentially activate one copy over the other.

25 Feb 2017

Discovery of early biomarkers paves way for new insight into Huntington's disease

Early warning signs of Huntington's disease have been uncovered in a sheep carrying the human HD mutation, leading the way for new insight into this devastating illness, a new study in Scientific Reports has found.

22 Feb 2017

Targeting RNA repeats

RNA repeats are stretches of code in the body that incrementally repeat. For example, in the most common cause of adult-on-set muscular dystrophy a RNA has a repeat of r(CUG) and this three letter code can repeat thousands of times.

20 Feb 2017

SBP scientists identify autophagy linked to beneficial effects of enduring temporary stress

Biologists have known for decades that enduring a short period of mild stress makes simple organisms and human cells better able to survive additional stress later in life.

15 Feb 2017

Duke Health researchers identify potential new drug target for Huntington's disease

The loss of motor function and mental acuity associated with Huntington's disease might be treatable by restoring a cellular quality control process, which Duke Health researchers have identified as a key factor in the degenerative illness.

13 Feb 2017

Defective brain cells disposing toxic proteins may be linked to neurodegenerative diseases

Rutgers scientists say neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's may be linked to defective brain cells disposing toxic proteins that make neighboring cells sick.

10 Feb 2017

Designer compound may be effective tool for tackling tau-related disorders

In a study of mice and monkeys, National Institutes of Health funded researchers showed that they could prevent and reverse some of the brain injury caused by the toxic form of a protein called tau.

8 Feb 2017

Scientists discover treatment that improves symptoms in mouse model of juvenile Batten disease

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital and King's College London have discovered a treatment that improves the neurological symptoms in a mouse model of juvenile Batten disease.

6 Feb 2017