{"id":241086,"date":"2026-07-17T12:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T17:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/finding-the-rna-aptamer-in-the-haystack-that-could-improve-treatment-for-parkinsons"},"modified":"2026-07-17T12:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T17:20:08","slug":"finding-the-rna-aptamer-in-the-haystack-that-could-improve-treatment-for-parkinsons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/finding-the-rna-aptamer-in-the-haystack-that-could-improve-treatment-for-parkinsons","title":{"rendered":"Finding the RNA aptamer in the haystack that could improve treatment for Parkinson\u2019s"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/finding-the-rna-aptamer-in-the-haystack-that-could-improve-treatment-for-parkinsons.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Synucleinopathies are a group of neurodegenerative disorders that include serious conditions such as Parkinson\u2019s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. There are currently no cures for these disorders, and treatment is limited to mitigating symptoms. Recently, antibody-based therapies have attracted considerable attention, but alternative approaches are still necessary.<\/p>\n<p>Therapy development for synucleinopathies tends to target the alpha-synuclein protein, \u03b1Syn, the abnormal aggregation of which is a hallmark of these diseases. However, targeting this protein using conventional drug discovery strategies is stymied by the molecule\u2019s lack of a stable three-dimensional structure, which promotes aggregation.<\/p>\n<p>Interested in understanding how abnormal protein aggregation drives neurodegeneration, a team of researchers at Kyoto University had an idea that was both scientifically intriguing and therapeutically promising: Could RNA aptamers\u2014often described as \u201cchemical antibodies\u201d\u2014directly recognize \u03b1Syn\u2019s disordered regions and suppress pathological aggregation?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synucleinopathies are a group of neurodegenerative disorders that include serious conditions such as Parkinson\u2019s disease and dementia with Lewy bodies. There are currently no cures for these disorders, and treatment is limited to mitigating symptoms. Recently, antibody-based therapies have attracted considerable attention, but alternative approaches are still necessary. Therapy development for synucleinopathies tends to target [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241086","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=241086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}