http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Amyloids, or fibrous aggregates of abnormally folded proteins, are a common feature in degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, diabetes and cancer. Amyloids occur naturally in the body, but despite decades of research, their mechanism of formation remains unknown, hampering drug development efforts. Now, a new class of ultrasmall peptides developed by the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) offers scientists a platform for understanding this phenomenon, providing them with the insights required to design more effective treatments for these diseases. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-abnormal-proteins-degenerative-diseases.html Medical research Mon, 22 Apr 2013 07:08:32 EST news285833302 (Medical Xpress)—Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that a drug treatment administered at the earliest signs of a rare genetic disease could prevent the condition from developing in later life. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-alkaptonuria-treatment-rare-genetic-disease.html Arthritis & Rheumatism Thu, 04 Apr 2013 06:54:49 EST news284277272 (Medical Xpress)—A study led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital has discovered mutations in two genes that lead to the death of nerve cells in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and related degenerative diseases. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-genes-linked-amyotrophic-lateral-sclerosis.html Genetics Mon, 18 Mar 2013 07:58:55 EST news282812309 Researchers have discovered how oxidative stress can turn to the dark side a cellular protein that's usually benign, and make it become a powerful, unwanted accomplice in neuronal death. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-discovery-door-drug-options-diseases.html Medical research Mon, 04 Mar 2013 15:00:14 EST news281615911 A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, represents a major advance in the understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind aging while providing new hope for the development of targeted treatments for age-related degenerative diseases. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-sirtuin-protein-discovery-door-potential.html Medical research Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:00:11 EST news278853989 Rush University Medical Center is conducting the nation's first clinical study of an innovative stem cell drug, Cartistem, to repair knee cartilage damaged by aging, trauma or degenerative diseases such as osteoarthritis. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-stem-cell-therapy-knee-cartilage.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:45:10 EST news278264701 Working with mice, Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that a particular protein helps nerve cells extend themselves along the spinal cord during mammalian development. Their results shed light on the subset of muscular dystrophies that result from mutations in the gene that holds the code for the protein, called dystroglycan, and also show how the nerve and muscle failings of the degenerative diseases are related. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-protein-paths-nerve-cells.html Neuroscience Wed, 19 Dec 2012 14:55:31 EST news275151317 (Medical Xpress)—A newly-engineered strain of mice whose dividing cells express a fluorescent protein could open the door to new methods of regulating cell proliferation in humans. Cell proliferation plays a key role in degenerative diseases, in which specific cells do not replicate enough, and in cancers, in which cells replicate too much. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-cell-proliferation-key-factor-degenerative.html Medical research Wed, 28 Nov 2012 07:51:58 EST news273311505 By using a model, researchers at the University of Montreal have identified and "switched off" a chemical chain that causes neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and dementia. The findings could one day be of particular therapeutic benefit to Huntington's disease patients. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-chemical-neurodegenerative-diseases.html Neuroscience Tue, 27 Nov 2012 04:50:39 EST news273214228 World-leading experts in Magnetic Resonance Imaging from The University of Nottingham's Sir Peter Mansfield Magnetic Resonance Centre  have made a key discovery which could give the medical world a new tool for the improved diagnosis and monitoring of neuro-degenerative diseases like multiple sclerosis. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-mri-nerve-fibres-brain.html Neuroscience Wed, 24 Oct 2012 08:40:01 EST news270285658 People who bear the genetic mutation for Huntington's disease learn faster than healthy people. The more pronounced the mutation was, the more quickly they learned. This is reported by researchers from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and from Dortmund in the journal Current Biology. The team has thus demonstrated for the first time that neurodegenerative diseases can go hand in hand with increased learning efficiency. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-faster-neurodegenerative-disease.html Neuroscience Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:48:24 EST news266834895 Tiny zebrafish just may give scientists one solution to information overload in the search for new drugs therapies. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-zebrafish-drug-discovery.html Medical research Tue, 17 Jan 2012 10:26:11 EST news246018365 Neurons in the brain play a role as an electric wire conveying an electrical signal. Because this electric wire is connected with various joints (synapse), various brain functions can occur. A neuron which has dendritic trees on it, receives the signals with many synapses located on those dendritic trees, and carries out functions by combining the received signals. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-d-reconstructed-image-neural-dendritic.html Medical research Tue, 13 Sep 2011 09:22:23 EST news235124523 An international research team, spearheaded by Dr. Tim Mercer from The University of Queensland's Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB), has unlocked the blueprints to the ‘power plants' of the cell in an effort that will provide clues on treating a range of degenerative diseases. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-genetic-reveals-clues-degenerative-diseases.html Medical research Wed, 24 Aug 2011 10:16:26 EST news233399773 In type 2 diabetes, a protein called amylin forms dense clumps that shut down insulin-producing cells, wreaking havoc on the control of blood sugar. But zinc has a knack for preventing amylin from misbehaving. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-diabetes-zinc-effects-kinky-two-faced.html Medical research Thu, 30 Jun 2011 17:47:04 EST news228674805 Most degenerative diseases begin with a gradual loss of specific cell types that progresses, eventually leading to symptoms. For example, in type I diabetes, hyperglycemia commonly develops when approximately 80 percent of the beta cells in the pancreas are lost; in Parkinson's disease, motor dysfunction typically begins when neurons in a certain portion of the brain are decreased by 70 to 80 percent. Finding ways to stop early cell destruction is vital, but methods to do so have proven challenging because of limitations of models for early stages of cell loss. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-mouse-therapies-degenerative-diseases.html Medical research Mon, 16 May 2011 05:03:01 EST news224740958 A team of American and Chinese scientists studying the role of stem cells in repairing damaged retina tissue have found that pigs represent an effective proxy species to research treatments for humans. The study, published in STEM CELLS, demonstrates how stem cells can be isolated and transplanted between pigs, overcoming a key barrier to the research. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-pig-stem-cell-transplants-key.html Medical research Wed, 13 Apr 2011 03:24:19 EST news221883844 For years, researchers in genome stability have observed that several neurodegenerative diseases—including Huntington's disease—are associated with cell-killing proteins that are created during expansion of a CAG/CTG trinucleotide repeat. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-04-scientists-clue-degenerative-diseases.html Genetics Mon, 11 Apr 2011 09:55:32 EST news221734510