Additional Genetic Influence For Alzheimer's Disease...( or Dr. Lindsay Farrer aprofessor of m...)

or Dr. Lindsay Farrer, a professor of medicine and chief of the genetics program at Boston University School of Medicine. "The next step will be to study many more families in order to identify the exact region. Once we have narrowed the region to a small DNA segment, we can then focus our attention on the genes contained in this segment."

"This type of research -- first defining genetic risk factors and then defining how these genes cause Alzheimer's disease -- provides a strong basis for attempts to develop treatments and preventions based on a rational understanding of the disease rather than simply trying different drugs to see if they work," explains St. George-Hyslop. "There are many more years of hard work ahead of us."

Unlike genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis and Huntington's disease in which the presence of the gene for these disorders consistently results in having the disease, Alzheimer's disease is complex and involves multiple factors, much like cardiovascular disease. "It's too early to say whether or not the gene on chromosome 12 can be used to predict a person's susceptibility to the disease," notes Farrer.

Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that is characterized by pervasive and progressive memory and cognition loss, accompanied by physical changes in the brain such as a loss of neurons, deposits of extracellular amyloid plaque and tangles' of fibres between neurons. Epidemiological and molecular genetic data suggest that although there are likely multiple factors influencing the cause of Alzheimer's, genetic factors play a prominent role in many cases.

The research was supported by grants through the Medical Research Council of Canada, The Canadian Genetic Diseases Network, The Alzheimer Association of Ontario, The Howard Hughes Medical Research Foundation, the EJLB Foundation, Telethon and the National Institutes of Health.
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Contact: Christina Marshall
christina.marshall@utoronto.ca
(416) 978-5949
University of Toronto
19-Aug-1998

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