New clues to hereditary blinding disease found
...ill misfold and break down, triggering cell death, degeneration of the retina and eventually blindness," said John Hwa, MD, PhD, assistant professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Dartmouth Medical School. "What is especially exciting about this new direction in our research is that this characteristic of rho...Newly discovered protein may be key to muscular dystrophy
...uscular dystrophy, a disease of progressive muscle degeneration with no known cure. Scientists at UCSF's Erne...choline away from the nerve-muscle synapse. Muscle degeneration is the hallmark of muscular dystrophy, one of the most common genetic diseases. The study was ...Disruption of protein-folding causes neurodegeneration, mental retardation
...roteins into their proper shapes, triggering nerve degeneration and mental retardation in children. This finding,...ses are responsible for most severe cases of nerve degeneration and mental retardation among children. The discovery identifies for the first time the endoplasmic ...Protein is key to fatal disorder and normal cell function
...ontrolled apoptosis, or cell death, and the neural degeneration that is a hallmark of Batten disease. "Genetic diseases such as Batten disease provide a unique opportunity to understand the role of proteins, like cln3, that are vital for normal cell function," said Rose-Mary Boustany, M.D., a professor of pediatr...JCI table of contents September 15, 2004
...Veins of Thought for Retinal Degeneration Retinal degeneration is inherited by as many as 1 in 3,500 individuals....er, if the vasculature atrophy is secondary to the degeneration of the retina. To investigate the importance of vascular atrophy in retinal degeneration, Martin Fri...Study explores gene transfer to modify underlying course of Alzheimer's disease
...kin cells. Alzheimer's disease is caused by brain degeneration and is marked by the death of cells, particularly ...f cells (cholinergic neurons) which undergo severe degeneration and death in Alzheimer's disease patients. NGF restored atrophied (shrunken) brain cells to near-nor...Schepens Eye Research Institute receives 'Roadmap' grant to develop center for curing eye diseases
...diseases is becoming critical. Age-related macular degeneration affects more than 1.75 million individuals in the United States. This number is expected to increase to almost 3 million by 2020.Each year 1.3 million Americans over age 20 are diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy. The financial impact and effect on q...