Study of Zebrafish Finds Possible New Cause of Dementia

The article: http://www.dzne.de/en/about-us/public-relations/meldungen/2013/press-release-no-8.html

An unadulterated juvenile zebrafish. Image is Public Domain.

    This article covers the research of a team of German and Belgian researchers, who have been able to reproduce ALS in zebrafish. To do this, they caused the zebrafish to have a shortage of the protein TDP-43 through genetic manipulation. ALS is the most common form of dementia, and also the one Stephen Hawking suffers from. This discovery is of potentially vast importance, as ALS purportedly affects about one in 500 Germans (this may be inaccurate -- the article claims that 150,000 Germans are suffering with ALS, but other souces claim only about 30,000 Americans are dealing with the same disease). TDP-43 is involved in processing genetic information. When zebrafish have ALS, it has been observed that the normal function of these proteins is interrupted, and they gather outside of the nucleus. The study found that zebrafish which produced no TDP-43 had muscles which wasted, a massively disturbed circulatory system, and abnormal nerves. All of these fish died soon after hatching.

Themes on the Nature of Science:
1.) Science is collaborative. The researchers working on this disease came from both Belgium and Germany. In the meantime, ALS research is going on worldwide.
2.) Importance of repeatability. This, by all means, should be easily repeatable by any research centers with the equipment necessary for genetic modification. Some basic background research indicates that other research institutions are saying similar things about the potential causes of ALS, so it's only a matter of time before we find a fully valid explanation.
3.) Science is based on evidence. They destroyed the ability for the zebrafish to make a specific protein, and they showed traits of ALS immediately, whereas they normally have no such issue. though it's not been thoroughly tested, it's reasonable to say for now that a lack of TDP-43 is potentially responsible for ALS and perhpas other degenerative diseases.