Alzheimer’s currently effects over 20 million people and continues to have no cause or cure, it is so common its normal to hear about it and how your risk of Alzheimer’s doubles every five years after you turn 65. Scientists at UCLA believe they have found a way to pre-determine if someone will receive Alzheimer’s when they get older. When looking at the DNA of Alzheimer’s patients, they have noticed a pattern; they have found a abnormality in the gene codes and have found 9 Alzheimer’s risk genes. If they are able to find a way to turn off these genes the probability of developing Alzheimer’s can go way down. The scientists say that there are "spelling errors" in their genes which can reduce brain connections, leading to Alzheimer’s. They were able to test for brain connections strength by running a "connectome scan" which measures water diffusion in the brain. From this research they have created drugs to try and see if this disastrous disease can be avoided.
Link:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130306133813.htm
NOS Themes:
- Role of motivation and curiosity- they were genuinely moved to find the cures for the disease.
- Science is collaborative- these scientists work together to produce results.
- Science is based on evidence- they have found patterns within Alzheimer's patients.
I think another NOS theme is that repeatability is important. This article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10539/Cure-Alzheimers-closer.html
ReplyDeleteis about a cure for alzheimers
This article is very interesting to me because I'm always afraid that I'm going to get Alzheimer's when I get older. People always talk about uncurable disease like HIV but I feel like people never really think about how Alzheimer's does not have a cure either. While it is probably not as deadly as HIV, it can also lead to death because you could forget where you live and things like that. It would be really cool if theses scientists could turn off Alzheimer's. I don't realyl understand how that would work though. Can you just turn off genes? Does that mean that there are genes in our body that we don't even need?
ReplyDelete