How Can We Help?
The pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) include extracellular beta-amyloid plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, neuronal loss and tau deposits in brain. Therapies targeting these known hallmarks are yet to yield any meaningful benefit in clinical trials. We spoke to four researchers in the fields of AD research and therapy development to find out where they think the fields should head next.
(TIGR) interest group meets every other week to hear about new research, methods, recent journal articles and service offerings around the University. Meetings are held from 9:30 to 10:30 AM in the Del Monte Building, first floor conference room (KMRBX 1-11211).
A groundbreaking clinical trial on whether diet could boost the effectiveness of cancer drugs is set to be launched by one of the world’s leading oncologists.
The work, led by Siddhartha Mukherjee at Columbia University Medical Center in New York, will investigate whether a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet could improve outcomes for patients with lymphoma and endometrial cancer.
The trial, which is initially recruiting 40 patients, is the first in a series of similar interventions being planned at other centres in the US and Europe by members of a new international working group focused on “rethinking human diets for cancer”, said Mukherjee, who is best known for writing the Pulitzer prize-winning book The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer.
A mind-boggling and ever-expanding range of topics run the gamut from basic and clinical to translational research. Basic research provides a fundamental understanding of molecules and mechanisms that, without offering any apparent practical avenue for patient treatment, involves identifying cellular processes and genetic mutations and revealing breakdowns in cellular communication associated with all manner of diseases and disorders–Marfan syndrome, for instance. Clinical research–such as testing a hypertension medicine in mice genetically engineered to have Marfan syndrome, for instance–applies itself directly to improving the human condition. Translational research–often described as ‘bench-to-bedside’ studies–accelerates the discovery of new treatments directed at the basic mechanisms of disorder and disease and hastens the time when effective treatments become a reality. Marfan syndrome is just one excellent example of how finding the genes responsible for a disease, and discovering what regulates them, can lead to therapy.
