{"id":236819,"date":"2026-05-08T22:39:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T03:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/specialized-rna-molecules-could-counter-als-neurodegeneration"},"modified":"2026-05-08T22:39:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T03:39:40","slug":"specialized-rna-molecules-could-counter-als-neurodegeneration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/specialized-rna-molecules-could-counter-als-neurodegeneration","title":{"rendered":"Specialized RNA molecules could counter ALS neurodegeneration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/specialized-rna-molecules-could-counter-als-neurodegeneration2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Misshapen proteins cause a mess of trouble\u2014particularly in neurodegenerative diseases. But a new study suggests it\u2019s possible that giving them a little bit of extra support could keep them working correctly, and even reverse the damage they have caused.<\/p>\n<p>The new research focuses on one such aberrant protein, TDP-43, which binds to RNA in the cell\u2019s nucleus and is responsible for regulating thousands of human genes. If TDP-43 turns from a healthy, liquid-like phase into diseased, fibrous solid-like aggregates, its presence can be fatal.<\/p>\n<p>This protein is one of the key drivers of the diseases amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD)\u2014a discovery first made by pioneering Penn Medicine scientists Virginia M.-Y. Lee, Ph.D., MBA, and the late John Trojanowski, MD, Ph.D.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Misshapen proteins cause a mess of trouble\u2014particularly in neurodegenerative diseases. But a new study suggests it\u2019s possible that giving them a little bit of extra support could keep them working correctly, and even reverse the damage they have caused. The new research focuses on one such aberrant protein, TDP-43, which binds to RNA in the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236819","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=236819"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236819\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}