{"id":80666,"date":"2018-07-15T13:05:34","date_gmt":"2018-07-15T20:05:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/the-big-bang-of-alzheimers-scientists-id-genesis-of-disease-focus-efforts-on-shape-shifting-tau"},"modified":"2018-07-15T13:05:34","modified_gmt":"2018-07-15T20:05:34","slug":"the-big-bang-of-alzheimers-scientists-id-genesis-of-disease-focus-efforts-on-shape-shifting-tau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/the-big-bang-of-alzheimers-scientists-id-genesis-of-disease-focus-efforts-on-shape-shifting-tau","title":{"rendered":"The \u2018Big Bang\u2019 of Alzheimer\u2019s: Scientists ID genesis of disease, focus efforts on shape-shifting tau"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Scientists have discovered a \u201cBig Bang\u201d of Alzheimer\u2019s disease \u2013 the precise point at which a healthy protein becomes toxic but has not yet formed deadly tangles in the brain.<\/p>\n

A study from UT Southwestern\u2019s O\u2019Donnell Brain Institute provides novel insight into the shape-shifting nature of a tau molecule just before it begins sticking to itself to form larger aggregates. The revelation offers a new strategy to detect the devastating disease before it takes hold and has spawned an effort to develop treatments that stabilize tau proteins before they shift shape.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is perhaps the biggest finding we have made to date, though it will likely be some time before any benefits materialize in the clinic. This changes much of how we think about the problem,\u201d said Dr. Marc Diamond, Director for UT Southwestern\u2019s Center for Alzheimer\u2019s and Neurodegenerative Diseases and a leading dementia expert credited with determining that tau acts like a prion \u2013 an infectious protein<\/a> that can self-replicate.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists have discovered a \u201cBig Bang\u201d of Alzheimer\u2019s disease \u2013 the precise point at which a healthy protein becomes toxic but has not yet formed deadly tangles in the brain. A study from UT Southwestern\u2019s O\u2019Donnell Brain Institute provides novel insight into the shape-shifting nature of a tau molecule just before it begins sticking to [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80666","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\/80666","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\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}