Category Biology/Biotechnology

A “chaperone” molecule that slows the formation of certain proteins reversed disease signs, including memory impairment, in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

In the study, published in Aging Biology, researchers examined the effects of a compound called 4-phenylbutyrate (PBA), a fatty-acid molecule known to work as a “chemical chaperone” that inhibits protein accumulation. In mice that model Alzheimer’s disease, injections of PBA helped to restore signs of normal proteostasis (the protein regulation process) in the animals’ brains while also dramatically improving their performance on a standard memory test, even when administered late in the disease course.

“By genera...

Researcher Dr. Daniel Drucker has much to be proud of, as the GLP-1-based diabetes drugs hailing from his early research are named the 2023 breakthrough of the year by the Science Magazine. Not only have millions of people with type 2 diabetes benefitted from GLP-1 agonists, but the drugs also produced wide-ranging health benefits beyond weight loss in two recent patient trials.

For years, GLP-1 agonists have been known to have a fortuitous side effect of improving metabolic health, but how this is regulated in the body remains unclear. Now Dr. Drucker, who has dedicated his life’s work to understanding how these drugs work, has a new paper that begins to unravel the mystery with a novel finding—it all starts in the brain.

His team at the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute...

Hard-to-detect colorectal pre-cancerous lesions known as serrated polyps, and the aggressive tumors that develop from them, depend heavily on the ramped-up production of cholesterol, according to a preclinical study from researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine. The finding points to the possibility of using cholesterol-lowering drugs to prevent or treat such tumors.

In the study, published Oct...

Researchers from Charité and McGill University quantify association between Helicobacter pylori and Alzheimer’s disease. Infection with the stomach bacterium Helicobacter pylori could increase the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease: In people over the age of 50, the risk following a symptomatic infection can be an average of 11 percent higher, and even more about ten years after the infection, at 24 percent greater risk. These are the findings of a study by Charité — Universitätsmedizin Berlin and McGill University (Canada), now published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.* The researchers analyzed three decades’ worth of patient data.

As today’s populations age, dementia is set to become more common, tripling in prevalence in ...