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Alzheimer's Disease Working Group
A Multidisciplinary Approach to Cure Alzheimer's Disease
Through its Working Group on Alzheimer’s Disease, Stanford University has created a research culture needed to accelerate progress in understanding and treating Alzheimer’s disease–one in which scientists, clinicians, patients, and industry work together to define critical gaps in understanding, provide resources to fill those gaps through targeted research, link these efforts to the identification of therapeutic targets, develop treatments to address the targets identified, and bring the most promising of these to clinical trial and application.
Highlights of Current Alzheimer Research at Stanford University
Tony Wyss-Coray is using new mouse models to study the role of immune responses and inflammation in neurodegeneration and Alzheimer’s disease. In one of these models, bioluminescence can be imaged from living mice and serves as an indicator of neurodegeneration. This method allows for easy and rapid testing of new treatments.
In a collaborative effort, William Mobley and Tony Wyss-Coray are exploring the role of failed transport of molecules within specific neurons. The molecules in question are essential for the proper function and survival of these neurons. Failed transport of these molecules has been implicated in Alzheimer’s disease. Research in this area promises to greatly expand our understanding of the disorder and may lead to potential new targets for treatment.
Michael Greicius uses functional MRI to study a memory network that is active when subjects rest quietly in the scanner. This memory network is deficient in patients with Alzheimer’s disease compared to patients with other dementias. As such, measuring activity in this network promises to provide a diagnostic test for Alzheimer’s disease. Preliminary data suggest that this network shows increased activity within 5-6 weeks of starting treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. This raises the possibility that this method could also be used as an early, objective marker of treatment response in experimental drug trials.
Ron Kopito has made breakthrough discoveries regarding protein aggregation in various neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Abnormal accumulation of incorrectly folded proteins appears to be a common mechanism in several diseases leading to neuronal cell death.
Bingwei Lu is employing a genetic approach to delienate cellular signaling pathways involved in the neuronal dysfunction and cell death process in Alzheimer's disease. Using the fruit fly Drosophila as a model system, his lab has shown that PAR-1/MARK kinase plays a critical role in initiating a multi-site phosphorylation process that generates neurotoxic tau species. Lu's lab is now focusing on elucidating upstream signaling events that impinge on PAR-1/MARK to regulate tau phosphorylation and the cellular mechanisms by which hyperphosphorylated tau confers neurotoxicity.
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