Embryonic stem (ES) cells have the ability to divide ad infinitum. In today's Cell, two independent research groups report that a key to this "eternal youth" is the protein Nanog, which appears essential not only for cellular self-renewal, but also for...
In sharp contrast to prevailing hypotheses, taking combination hormone replacement actually doubles a woman’s risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, when the therapy is begun at age 65 or older...
Organized by Israel Hanin, Abraham Fisher, and Ramon Cacabelos, the 6th International Conference on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases was a great success. The number of registered participants reached over 1,200...
Launched by BioMed Central last fall, peer-reviewed, and indexed by PubMed, this free online publication seeks to fill a gap well-known to any researcher who has tried to publish such data in conventional scientific journals...
The widely used psychiatric drug lithium, and other agents that inhibit glycogen synthase kinase-3 (GSK3), have been mentioned as possible Alzheimer's disease therapies for some time, primarily because GSK3 is one of several kinases known to phosphorylate tau...
After a tough year, during which believers in immunotherapy for Alzheimer’s disease have had to fend off vociferous criticism, the news now appears to pick up...
Despite its long and distinguished history in Alzheimer’s research, the microtubule-stabilizing protein tau still poses many a riddle to scientists. They do know that excessive phosphorylation of tau somehow figures in neurodegeneration...
Papers in tomorrow’s Cell and last week's Neuron reveal that protein phosphorylation plays a key role in spinocerebellar ataxia type 1 (SCA-1), an ultimately fatal neurodegenerative disease marked by progressive loss of muscle control...
A paper in yesterday’s online Nature Medicine suggests that the involuntary movements that accompany standard treatment for Parkinson's disease may be controlled by administration of neurotransmitter analogs...
A report in next week's PNAS adds to the growing evidence that insulin-degrading enzyme (IDE), or insulysin, plays a role in the degradation of amyloid-β (Aβ)...
On May 4-5, Harvard Medical School briefed reporters on new directions in biomedical research. The meeting featured diverse presentations ranging from basic research on RNA splicing and clinical trials of proteasome inhibitors to the evolutionary role of genes involved in intelligence and mental retardation, and more...
Successful radiotracers for positron emission tomography (PET) diagnosis of AD are a mere year or two away, according to leading researchers who met on May 1-2 in New York...
In today's Science, researchers report that mutations in the protein dynein—the motor that drives the transport of large molecules from the synaptic terminal back to the neuron’s cell body—can lead to forms of neurodegeneration reminiscent of motor neuron diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)...