Huntington’s Disease News and Research

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Why different tissues in the human body vary in their susceptibility to "amyloid" diseases

Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute are reporting the results of a recent study that addresses why different tissues in the human body vary in their susceptibility to "amyloid" diseases, which include Alzheimer's disease and a cluster of ailments called the familial amyloidoses.

7 Apr 2005

Potential therapeutic target for treating Huntington's disease

Researchers studying yeast cells have identified a metabolic enzyme as a potential therapeutic target for treating Huntington's disease, a fatal inherited neurodegenerative disorder for which there is currently no effective treatment. The group, whose results appear in the May issue of Nature Genetics, includes researchers from the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle and the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.

6 Apr 2005

Largest "gene deserts" yet discovered in the human genome sequence

A detailed analysis of chromosomes 2 and 4 has detected the largest "gene deserts" known in the human genome and uncovered more evidence that human chromosome 2 arose from the fusion of two ancestral ape chromosomes, researchers supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

6 Apr 2005

Step toward a potential treatment for Huntington's disease

Researchers at the University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine have taken another step toward a potential treatment for Huntington's disease (HD). Using an approach called RNA interference (RNAi), the scientists reduced levels of the disease-causing HD protein in mice and significantly improved the movement and neurological abnormalities normally associated with the disease.

4 Apr 2005

Potential therapeutic role for the ataxin-3 protein for Machado-Joseph disease

The repetition of three little "letters" within the gene that codes for the ataxin-3 protein is both the cause of and perhaps a solution to Machado-Joseph disease and an entire family of similar genetic disorders, according to researchers at the University of Pennsylvania.

3 Apr 2005

The good news and the bad news on epilepsy drugs for pregnant women

Two new studies on the effects of epilepsy drugs taken during pregnancy show mixed results. The risk of birth defects with a newer drug, lamotrigine, was similar to that in women without epilepsy.

21 Mar 2005

RNA interference as promising therapy for ALS

Scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have used RNA interference in transgenic mice to silence a mutated gene that causes inherited cases of amytrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), substantially delaying both the onset and the progression rate of the fatal motor neuron disease.

13 Mar 2005

Cure for heart disease very close despite poor funding

Doctors at Barts and The London NHS Trust are hoping a four-year research programme in stem cell research will bring them closer to finding a miracle cure for heart disease, but are struggling to raise the money. The programme will involve 600 patients.

7 Mar 2005

Potential treatments for neurofibromatosis

Scientists at the Indiana University School of Medicine are closing in on potential treatments for neurofibromatosis, a genetic disease that afflicts 100,000 Americans with nerve tissue tumors, some of which become cancerous.

3 Feb 2005

Psychiatric illness drugs may protect the brain cells that die in people with Huntington's disease

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered that drugs commonly used to treat psychiatric illnesses and blood disorders in humans may protect the brain cells that die in people with Huntington's disease, possibly delaying the onset and slowing the progression of the disease.

31 Jan 2005

Origins of racial health disparities can involve both genes and environment and the interactions between them

New understanding of the dynamic interplay between genes and environment, made possible by technologies arising from the Human Genome Project, helps support the individualization of medicine and makes focusing on racial or ethnic group differences in disease less relevant, say Penn State researchers.

17 Jan 2005

First program to apply RNA interference (RNAi) technology to asthma

Sirna Therapeutics, Inc. has announced the first program to apply RNA interference (RNAi) technology to asthma, a highly prevalent, chronic disease accounting for an estimated $13 billion in healthcare costs in the United States, a number which is forecast to grow considerably by the end of the decade.

7 Jan 2005

New technique for tracking gene regulators

Finding out where gene-regulator proteins bind to DNA and identifying the genes they regulate just got a step easier thanks to a new technique developed by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.

28 Dec 2004

A step closer to medical treatments for neural disorders

New insight into the role of a key regulator in cell division may help uncover new drug targets in the search for treatments for neural disorders such as Parkinson's and Huntington's disease.

29 Nov 2004

Movies help explain how proteins gather into clusters called amyloid fibrils

To get a better look at how proteins gather into clusters called amyloid fibrils – which are associated with important human diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and the so-called prion diseases like Mad Cow – researchers at North Carolina State University decided to make movies.

23 Nov 2004

Family experience guides Alzheimer’s research

After watching his father struggle with and ultimately succumb to Alzheimer’s disease, ASU professor Michael Sierks shifted his research focus from starch hydrolyzing to neurodegenerative diseases.

18 Nov 2004

Autophagy may even provide a clue to the mythical fountain of youth

The cells of higher organisms have an internal mechanism for chewing up and recycling parts of themselves, particularly in times of stress, like starvation and disease. But nobody is quite sure yet whether this recently discovered process protects cells, or causes damage.

5 Nov 2004

Researchers help define Apolipoprotein E's role in the formation of amyloid brain lesions and the memory loss associated with Alzheimer's disease

A research team led by University of South Florida neuroscientist Huntington Potter, PhD, CEO of the Johnnie B. Byrd Sr. Alzheimer's Center & Research Institute, for the first time has defined how the protein Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) contributes to both the formation of amyloid brain lesions and the memory loss associated with Alzheimer's disease.

1 Nov 2004

Key discovery toward understanding mechanism associated with uncontrollable muscular movements

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's and Huntington's exhibit loss of nerve function in different ways, from memory lapses to uncontrollable muscular movements, but it is now believed that these diseases share many common molecular mechanisms.

22 Oct 2004

Robotic microscope shows how mutant Huntington's disease protein affects neurons

Using a specially designed robotic microscope to study cultured cells, researchers have found evidence that abnormal protein clumps called inclusion bodies in neurons from people with Huntington's disease (HD) prevent cell death.

13 Oct 2004