{"id":229339,"date":"2026-01-19T22:15:25","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T04:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/motor-protein-discovery-in-fruit-flies-may-unlock-neurodegenerative-secrets"},"modified":"2026-01-19T22:15:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T04:15:25","slug":"motor-protein-discovery-in-fruit-flies-may-unlock-neurodegenerative-secrets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/motor-protein-discovery-in-fruit-flies-may-unlock-neurodegenerative-secrets","title":{"rendered":"Motor protein discovery in fruit flies may unlock neurodegenerative secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/motor-protein-discovery-in-fruit-flies-may-unlock-neurodegenerative-secrets2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Scientists have long known that inherited neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer\u2019s, Parkinson\u2019s or motor neuron disease, can be traced back to genetic mutations. However, how they cause the diseases remains unanswered.<\/p>\n<p>In today\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/current-biology\/fulltext\/S0960-9822(25)01691-4\" target=\"_blank\">issue<\/a> of the journal <i>Current Biology<\/i> Professor Andreas Prokop revealed that so-called \u201cmotor proteins\u201d can provide key answers in this quest.<\/p>\n<p>The research by the Prokop group focuses on nerve fibers, also called axons. Axons are the delicate biological cables that send messages between the brain and body to control our movements and behavior. Intriguingly, axons need to survive and stay functional for our entire lifetime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists have long known that inherited neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer\u2019s, Parkinson\u2019s or motor neuron disease, can be traced back to genetic mutations. However, how they cause the diseases remains unanswered. In today\u2019s issue of the journal Current Biology Professor Andreas Prokop revealed that so-called \u201cmotor proteins\u201d can provide key answers in this quest. The research [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229339","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=229339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}