Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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mild cognitive impairment

More on Alzheimer’s-blood pressure link

Emory’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center recently announced a grant that will support studies on the connections between blood pressure regulation and Alzheimer’s disease. It focuses on the roles of the renin-angiotensin system, the targets of common blood pressure medications, and endothelial cells, which line blood vessels.

Research on that theme is already underway at Emory. Malu Tansey is leading a large project funded by the National Institute on Aging ($3.4 million) with a similar title: “Inflammation and Renin-Angiotensin System Dysfunction as Risk Factors for Alzheimer’s Disease.” Co-investigators are Felicia Goldstein and Lary Walker at Emory and Christopher Norris at the University of Kentucky.

Both studies build on evidence that molecules that control blood pressure and inflammation also drive progression of Alzheimer’s disease, including work by Emory’s Whitney Wharton and Ihab Hajjar. They had found in an observational study that people who take medications targeting the renin-angiotensin system have a lower risk of progressing from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s.

Wharton is gearing up to test that idea more directly in an interventional study with the generic angiotensin receptor blocker telmisartan. This study is part of a Part the Cloud initiative supported by the Alzheimer’s Association.

Tansey’s project has started bearing fruit in an animal model of Alzheimer’s, according to this Keystone meeting report from Alzforum. Last summer, her graduate student Kathryn Macpherson described initial findings on the effects of an anti-inflammatory (anti-TNF) agent, which also has positive effects in a Parkinson’s model, and her plans to investigate the effects of high-sugar, high-fat diet.

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology, Neuro Leave a comment

A structure for SorLA/LR11

The importance of the SorLA or LR11 receptor in braking Alzheimer’s was originally defined here at Emory by Jim Lah and Allan Levey’s labs. Japanese researchers recently determined the structure of SorLA and published the results in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology. Their findings point toward a direct role for SorLA in binding toxic circulating beta-amyloid and transporting it to the lysosome for degradation. Hat tip to Alzforum.

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Quinn Eastman in Neuro Leave a comment

Alzheimer’s drug discovery: looking under the right ROCK

Developing drugs that can change the progression of Alzheimer’s disease is a huge challenge. In the last few years, more than one pharmaceutical firm have abandoned clinical programs in Alzheimer’s that once looked promising. Still, Emory and Scripps scientists have found an approach that deserves a second look and more investigation.

One straightforward drug strategy against Alzheimer’s is to turn down the brain’s production of beta-amyloid, the key component of the disease’s characteristic plaques. A toxic fragment of a protein found in healthy brains, beta-amyloid accumulates in the brains of people affected by the disease.

The enzyme that determines how much beta-amyloid brain cells generate is called BACE (beta-secretase or beta-site APP cleaving enzyme). Yet finding drugs that inhibit that elusive enzyme has been far from straightforward.

Now researchers  have identified a way to shut down production of beta-amyloid by diverting BACE to a different part of the cell and inhibiting its activity. The results were published this week in Journal of Neuroscience. Read more

Posted on December 6, 2013 by Quinn Eastman in Neuro Leave a comment