{"id":212022,"date":"2025-04-21T17:07:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T22:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/programmable-microglia-target-and-clear-toxic-proteins-linked-to-alzheimers-disease"},"modified":"2025-04-21T17:07:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T22:07:13","slug":"programmable-microglia-target-and-clear-toxic-proteins-linked-to-alzheimers-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/04\/programmable-microglia-target-and-clear-toxic-proteins-linked-to-alzheimers-disease","title":{"rendered":"Programmable microglia target and clear toxic proteins linked to Alzheimer\u2019s disease"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/programmable-microglia-target-and-clear-toxic-proteins-linked-to-alzheimers-disease2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A new way to deliver disease-fighting proteins throughout the brain may improve the treatment of Alzheimer\u2019s disease and other neurological disorders, according to University of California, Irvine scientists. By engineering human immune cells called microglia, the researchers have created living cellular \u201ccouriers\u201d capable of responding to brain pathology and releasing therapeutic agents exactly where needed.<\/p>\n<p>The study, <a href=\"https:\/\/linkinghub.elsevier.com\/retrieve\/pii\/S1934590925000992\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Cell Stem Cell<\/i>, demonstrates for the first time that <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/microglia\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">microglia<\/a> derived from induced pluripotent stem cells can be genetically programmed to detect disease-specific brain changes\u2014like <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/amyloid+plaques\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">amyloid plaques<\/a> in Alzheimer\u2019s disease\u2014and then release enzymes that help break down those toxic proteins. As a result, the cells were able to reduce inflammation, preserve neurons and synaptic connections, and reverse multiple other hallmarks of neurodegeneration in mice.<\/p>\n<p>For patients and families grappling with Alzheimer\u2019s and related diseases, the findings offer a hopeful glimpse at a future in which microglial-based cell therapies could precisely and safely counteract the ravages of neurodegeneration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new way to deliver disease-fighting proteins throughout the brain may improve the treatment of Alzheimer\u2019s disease and other neurological disorders, according to University of California, Irvine scientists. By engineering human immune cells called microglia, the researchers have created living cellular \u201ccouriers\u201d capable of responding to brain pathology and releasing therapeutic agents exactly where needed. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,38,412,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-212022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-engineering","category-genetics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212022","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\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}