Fruit flies and test tubes open new window on Alzheimer's disease
Monday, March 15, 2010 - 20:14
in Biology & Nature
A team of scientists from Cambridge and Sweden have discovered a molecule that can prevent a toxic protein involved in Alzheimer's disease from building up in the brain. Dr. Leila Luheshi, of the Department of Genetics at University of Cambridge, et al. found that in test tube studies the molecule not only prevents the protein from forming clumps but can also reverse the potentially toxic process. Then, using fruit flies engineered to develop a fly equivalent of Alzheimer's disease, they showed that the same molecule effectively "cures" the insects of the disease. This study will be published next week in PLoS Biology.