{"id":123409,"date":"2021-06-04T16:50:46","date_gmt":"2021-06-04T23:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/a-massive-new-gene-editing-project-is-out-to-crush-alzheimers"},"modified":"2021-06-04T16:50:46","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T23:50:46","slug":"a-massive-new-gene-editing-project-is-out-to-crush-alzheimers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2021\/06\/a-massive-new-gene-editing-project-is-out-to-crush-alzheimers","title":{"rendered":"A Massive New Gene Editing Project Is Out to Crush Alzheimer\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-massive-new-gene-editing-project-is-out-to-crush-alzheimers3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The idea is simple: decades of research have found certain genes that seem to increase the chance of Alzheimer\u2019s and other dementias. The numbers range over hundreds. Figuring out how each connects or influences another\u2014if at all\u2014takes years of research in individual labs. What if scientists unite, tap into a shared resource, and collectively solve the case of why Alzheimer\u2019s occurs in the first place?<\/p>\n<p>The initiative\u2019s secret weapon is induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs. Similar to most stem cells, they have the ability to transform into anything\u2014a cellular genie, if you will. iPSCs are reborn from regular adult cells, such as skin cells. When transformed into a brain cell, however, they carry the original genes of their donor, meaning that they harbor the original person\u2019s genetic legacy\u2014for example, his or her chance of developing Alzheimer\u2019s in the first place. What if we introduce Alzheimer\u2019s-related genes into these reborn stem cells, and watch how they behave?<\/p>\n<p>By studying these iPSCs, we might be able to follow clues that lead to the genetic causes of <a href=\" https:\/\/singularityhub.com\/2019\/03\/05\/the-gene-therapy-trial-aiming-to-fend-off-alzheimers\/\">Alzheimer\u2019s<\/a> and other dementias\u2014paving the road for gene therapies to nip them in the bud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The idea is simple: decades of research have found certain genes that seem to increase the chance of Alzheimer\u2019s and other dementias. The numbers range over hundreds. Figuring out how each connects or influences another\u2014if at all\u2014takes years of research in individual labs. What if scientists unite, tap into a shared resource, and collectively solve [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":556,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1902,11,412,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bioengineering","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123409\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}