The earliest signs of alkaptonuria are often subtle and harmless, like a diaper stained black. However, over the years, this rare genetic disease can lead to a lifetime of surgery. Now, after 20 years of research, a not-so-new drug can…
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Nanoparticles help untangle Alzheimer’s disease amyloid beta plaques
Scientists are still a long way from being able to treat Alzheimer’s Disease, in part because the protein aggregates that can become brain plaques, a hallmark of the disease, are hard to study. The plaques are caused by the amyloid…
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Efficient, systematic genetic analysis helps dissect disease inheritance
Many genetic variants have been found to have a linkage with genetic diseases, but the understanding of their functional roles in causing diseases are still limited. An international research team, including a biomedical scientist from City University of Hong Kong…
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New strategy blocks chronic lung disease in mice
Inflammatory lung diseases such as asthma, COPD and, most recently, COVID-19, have proven difficult to treat. Current therapies reduce symptoms and do little to stop such diseases from continuing to damage the lungs. Much research into treating chronic inflammatory diseases…
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New blood pressure-lowering guidelines could benefit 25 million Americans with chronic kidney disease
A recommendation for more intensive blood pressure management from an influential global nonprofit that publishes clinical practice guidelines in kidney disease could, if followed, benefit nearly 25 million Americans, according to an analysis led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins…
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New drug molecules hold promise for treating fatal child disease
Scientists have identified a way to “rescue” muscle cells that have genetically mutated, paving the way to a possible new treatment for rare childhood illness such as Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). The study, led by the Universities of Exeter and…
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New insight into protein structures that could treat Huntington’s disease
In Huntington’s disease, a faulty protein aggregates in brain cells and eventually kills them. Such protein aggregates could, in principle, be prevented with a heat shock protein. However, it is not well known how these proteins interact with the Huntington’s…
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Insights into the role of DNA repair and Huntington’s disease gene mutation open new avenues for drug discovery
Recent genetic data from patients with Huntington’s disease (HD) show that DNA repair is an important factor that determines how early or late the disease occurs in individuals who carry the expanded CAG repeat in the HTT gene that causes…
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Novel protein could reverse severe muscle wasting in disease, aging and trauma
When we tear a muscle ” stem cells within it repair the problem. We can see this occurring not only in severe muscle wasting diseases such as muscular dystrophy and in war veterans who survive catastrophic limb injuries, but also…
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First observation of the early association between proteins linked to Alzheimer’s disease
During the pre-clinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease, i.e. when subtle changes are taking place in the brain but no cognitive symptoms can be observed, the cortex presents a state of transient hyperexcitability. To date, several studies conducted in animals have…
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