http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. The group of genetic conditions known as spinocerebellar ataxias currently have no treatment or cure and are always fatal, in the case of affected children at an early age. Symptoms include a progressive lack of co-ordination of gait, and poor co-ordination of hands, speech and eye movements, due to a failure of co-ordination of muscle movements. Now researchers from France and the US have found a new way of controlling the symptoms and significantly improving the physical condition of animal models of the disease, the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics will hear on Monday, June 10. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-06-interferon-beta-aids-movement-mice-spinocerebellar.html Genetics Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:00:01 EST news290002368 In some neurodegenerative diseases, and specifically in a devastating inherited condition called spinocerebellar ataxia 1 (SCA1), the answer may not be an "all-or-nothing," said a collaboration of researchers from Baylor College of Medicine, the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children's Hospital and the University of Minnesota in a report that appears online in the journal Nature. The problem might be solved with just a little less. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-protein-neurodegenerative-disorders.html Neuroscience Wed, 29 May 2013 13:00:13 EST news289050464 As part of a new initiative to speed the search for changes in the body that can help predict, diagnose, or monitor Parkinson's disease, a research team led by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory recently received a grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). Scientists from PNNL, University of Miami, Baylor College of Medicine, and Rush University have teamed to identify new components of the Lewy bodies that accumulate in the brain during Parkinson's, and then use ultra-sensitive methods to see if any of these proteins have leaked into cerebrospinal fluid or blood. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-parkinson-puzzle-assay-components-protein.html Parkinson's & Movement disorders Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:50:02 EST news283505003 Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered how the most common genetic mutations in familial Parkinson's disease damage brain cells. The study, which published online today in the journal Nature Neuroscience, could also open up treatment possibilities for both familial Parkinson's and the more common form of Parkinson's that is not inherited. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-scientists-clean-up-snafu-brain-cells.html Parkinson's & Movement disorders Sun, 03 Mar 2013 13:00:18 EST news281520529 Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) are devastating neurodegenerative diseases with no effective treatment. Researchers are beginning to recognize ALS and FTD as part of a spectrum disorder with overlapping symptoms. Now investigators reporting online February 12 in the Cell Press journal Neuron have discovered an abnormal protein that first forms as a result of genetic abnormalities and later builds up in the brains of many patients with either disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-identification-abnormal-protein-als-frontotemporal.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Tue, 12 Feb 2013 12:30:01 EST news279894429 A team of academic researchers has pinpointed how vitamin D3 and omega-3 fatty acids may enhance the immune system's ability to clear the brain of amyloid plaques, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-vitamin-d-omega-amyloid-plaques.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Tue, 05 Feb 2013 12:53:28 EST news279291195 People who are "apple-shaped"—with fat more concentrated around the abdomen—have long been considered more at risk for conditions such as heart disease and diabetes than those who are "pear-shaped" and carry weight more in the buttocks, hips and thighs. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-deflates-notion-pear-shaped-bodies-healthy.html Health Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:38:41 EST news277058308 Described as a "big step forward" for research and treatment of Parkinson's disease, new research from Mayo Clinic in Arizona and Banner Sun Health Research Institute suggests that testing a portion of a person's saliva gland may be a way to diagnose the disease. The study was released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting in San Diego in March. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-saliva-gland-parkinson-disease.html Parkinson's & Movement disorders Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:00:01 EST news277044997 Research led by Dr. Udai Pandey, Assistant Professor of Genetics at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, has found that the ability of a protein made by a gene called FUS to bind to RNA is essential to the development of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). This discovery identifies a possible therapeutic target for the fatal neurological disease. The research will be available online in the Advanced Access section of the journal Human Molecular Genetics website, posted by December 21, 2012. It will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-discovery-therapeutic-als.html Genetics Wed, 19 Dec 2012 16:19:22 EST news275156355 Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) researchers Michael Deininger, M.D., Ph.D., and Thomas O'Hare, Ph.D., were part of a team that found a potent oral drug, ponatinib, effective in patients who have developed resistance to standard treatments for chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) and Philadelphia chromosome positive acute lymphoblastic lymphoma (Ph+ ALL). The New England Journal of Medicine released results of the trial today. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-clinical-trial-good-results-leukemia.html Cancer Fri, 30 Nov 2012 09:10:17 EST news273489005 Treatment with a novel agent that inhibits the activity of SIRT2, an enzyme that regulates many important cellular functions, reduced neurological damage, slowed the loss of motor function and extended survival in two animal models of Huntington's disease. The study led by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers will appear in the Dec. 27 issue of Cell Reports and is receiving advance online release. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-enzyme-inhibition-huntington-disease-animal.html Neuroscience Thu, 29 Nov 2012 12:07:05 EST news273413207 Pathological changes typical of Alzheimer's disease were significantly reduced in mice by blockade of an immune system transmitter. A research team from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the University of Zurich has just published a new therapeutic approach in fighting Alzheimer's disease in the current issue of Nature Medicine. This approach promises potential in prevention, as well as in cases where the disease has already set in. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-alzheimer-disease-mice-alleviated-therapeutic.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Sun, 25 Nov 2012 13:00:14 EST news273067537 Research led by the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital – Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project has identified a fusion gene responsible for almost 30 percent of a rare subtype of childhood leukemia with an extremely poor prognosis. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-gene-sequencing-abnormal-rare-childhood.html Cancer Mon, 12 Nov 2012 13:39:30 EST news271949948 New research presented in October at the 6th Neurodegenerative Conditions Research and Development Conference in San Francisco demonstrates the role of the investigational compound IRX4204 in alleviating cognitive decline in animal models of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The presentation entitled "Investigation of the RXR-specific agonist IRX4204 as a Disease Modifying Agent of Alzheimer's Disease Neuropathology and Cognitive Impairment" was made by lead researcher Giulio Maria Pasinetti, MD, PhD, of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-drug-animal-alzheimer-parkinson-dementia.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:10:01 EST news270475571 (Medical Xpress)—In 1906, when Alois Alzheimer discovered the neurodegenerative disease that would later be named for him, he saw amyloid-beta plaques and neurofibrillary tangles inside the brain. Several decades later, abnormal protein structures called Hirano bodies also were frequently observed in patients with neurodegenerative diseases. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-discovery-alzheimer-mystery.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Mon, 22 Oct 2012 08:10:02 EST news270109365 In what they say is a promising and highly selective treatment strategy, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have safely shut down breast cancer and a form of leukemia in mice by targeting abnormal proteins to which the cancers are "addicted," according to a new study. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-cancers-addiction-cell-cycle-proteins-tumors.html Cancer Tue, 16 Oct 2012 14:56:57 EST news269618209 (Medical Xpress)—Efforts to treat disorders like Lou Gehrig's disease, Paget's disease, inclusion body myopathy and dementia will receive a considerable boost from a new research model created by UC Irvine scientists. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-aid-degenerative-disease.html Medical research Tue, 02 Oct 2012 13:13:22 EST news268402331 New insights into certain muscle diseases, the filaminopathies, are reported by an international research team led by Dr. Rudolf Andre Kley of the RUB's University Hospital Bergmannsheil in the journal Brain. The scientists from the Neuromuscular Centre Ruhrgebiet (headed by Prof. Matthias Vorgerd) at the Neurological University Clinic (Director: Prof. Martin Tegenthoff) cooperated with colleagues from eleven institutes in seven countries. Among other things they found that protection mechanisms to combat abnormal protein deposits do not work properly in filaminopathy patients. This opens up new starting points for therapies that the team aims to test on cell cultures. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-impaired-protein-degradation-muscle-diseases.html Medical research Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:46:05 EST news267785157 Researchers report how abnormal protein deposits in the brains of Alzheimer's patients disrupt the signaling between nerve cells. They varied the amount of APP protein and related proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease in cell cultures, and then analyzed how this manipulation affected other proteins in the cell. The result: The amount of APP present was related to the amount of an enzyme that is essential for the production of neurotransmitters and therefore for communication amongst nerve cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-alzheimer-protein-neurotransmitter-production.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Tue, 21 Aug 2012 11:50:01 EST news264767503 A new study shows that the compound Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ) reduces oxidative damage, a key finding that hints at its potential to slow the progression of Huntington disease. The discovery, which appears in the inaugural issue of the Journal of Huntington's Disease, also points to a new biomarker that could be used to screen experimental treatments for this and other neurological disorders. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-coenzyme-q10-huntington-treatment.html Neuroscience Mon, 18 Jun 2012 17:00:01 EST news259251435 Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have amassed strong experimental evidence implying that commonly occurring large chromosomal deletions that are seen in many cancer types contain areas harboring multiple functionally linked genes whose loss, they posit, confers a survival advantage on growing tumors. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-clusters-cooperating-tumor-suppressor-genes-large.html Cancer Mon, 07 May 2012 15:00:12 EST news255613710 (Medical Xpress) -- Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania report this month in Cancer Research a universal approach to personalized cancer therapy based on T cells. It is the first time a system for making an adaptable, engineered T-cell to attack specific tumor types has been proposed, depending on which abnormal proteins, called antigens, are expressed by individual patients' tumor cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-universal-platform-cancer-immunotherapy.html Cancer Mon, 05 Mar 2012 16:43:28 EST news250188202 (Medical Xpress) -- An international team of scientists, led by the University of Sydney, has found the molecular structure in the body which functions as our 'shock absorber'. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-human-absorbers.html Medical research Tue, 14 Feb 2012 06:20:02 EST news248420649 Two studies published today in Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), demonstrate preliminary success of an effective multiple myeloma (MM) regimen in patients with AL amyloidosis, a rare and devastating blood disease that results in deposition of damaging abnormal protein in critical organs of the body, including the kidneys, heart, liver, and intestines, and shares some characteristics with MM. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-powerful-myeloma-treatment-regimen-al.html Cancer Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:28:09 EST news248362040 About one in five or six cases of adult leukaemia in Western populations relates to so-called chronic myeloid leukaemia, or CML. Treatment of CML usually relies on inhibitors of the abnormal protein that causes the condition but some patients do not respond to treatment and efforts are underway to develop a supplementary approach, targeting the so-called JAK2 kinase. Recent results from the groups of Veronika Sexl at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna (Vetmeduni Vienna) and Giulio Superti-Furga at the Research Center for Molecular Medicine of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (CeMM) have called this strategy into question. The work is published in the current issue of the prestigious journal Nature Chemical Biology and is of immediate relevance to leukaemia treatment. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-jak-leukaemia-therapy.html Cancer Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:18:39 EST news247141110 Scientists from the University of Colorado Cancer Center have once again advanced the treatment of a specific kind of lung cancer. The team has documented how anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) positive advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) becomes resistant to a drug targeting the abnormal protein in the cancer. It's the first time scientists have analyzed the frequency and type of drug resistance in ALK positive patients taking crizotinib. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-drug-resistance-alk-positive-lung.html Cancer Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:14:59 EST news246190465 One major obstacle in the fight against cancer is that anticancer drugs often affect normal cells in addition to tumor cells, resulting in significant side effects. Yet research into development of less harmful treatments geared toward the targeting of specific cancer-causing mechanisms is hampered by lack of knowledge of the molecular pathways that drive cancers in individual patients. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-tumor-targeting-compound-personalized-cancer-treatments.html Cancer Thu, 01 Dec 2011 16:00:01 EST news241977044 Depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the elderly, but little is known about the underlying biology of its development in older adults. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-imaging-technique-ids-plaques-tangles.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 08 Nov 2011 11:39:28 EST news239974757 Scientists from the National Institutes of Health in the United States have made an important discovery that should forever change the scope and direction of Alzheimer's research. Specifically, they have discovered that the protein tangles which are a hallmark of the disease involve at least three different proteins rather than just one. The discovery of these additional proteins, called neurofilaments and vimentin, should help scientists better understand the biology and progression of the disease as well as provide additional drug discovery targets. This discovery was published in the November 2011 issue of the FASEB Journal. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-11-tangled-web-alzheimer-protein-deposits.html Neuroscience Tue, 01 Nov 2011 09:55:03 EST news239360065 Whitehead Institute scientists report that patients whose estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancers have high levels of the ancient cellular survival factor heat shock factor 1 (HSF1) experience poor outcomes -- including increased mortality. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-high-master-protein-linked-poor.html Cancer Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:00:01 EST news239284830