(Press-News.org) (BOSTON)—The National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Aging recently awarded a $13.7 million grant to a project led by Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine principal investigators Lindsay Farrer, PhD, chief of biomedical genetics and distinguished professor of genetics, and Richard Sherva, PhD, assistant professor of medicine in biomedical genetics, for research using whole genome sequencing and other approaches to identify genetic factors for Alzheimer disease (AD) in Jews currently living in Israel who trace their ancestors to southern Spain and locations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Arab citizens of Israel.
“In this project, we will leverage the genetic architecture of MENA Jews and Arab citizens of Israel as well as their distinctive environmental exposures and lifestyles, to promote discovery of AD-related genes and variants,” said Farrer. “We expect that this project will identify novel targets for development of effective drugs to treat or retard processes leading to AD.”
Research has established that there is a strong genetic component to AD, but the functional variants in AD-associated genes and precise pathogenic mechanisms by which they lead to AD are largely unknown. Most discoveries of the genetic basis of AD were made by studying Caucasians of European ancestry and required samples of between 10,000 and 100,000 subjects. The new study builds upon earlier research, including by Farrer and his colleagues, demonstrating that there is an increased power of detection – requiring dramatically fewer participants – of genetic factors among communities who trace their lineage to a relatively small group of ancestors. Previous work by Farrer and his colleagues discovered several novel AD genes in Ashkenazi Jews who originated in Eastern Europe and Arabs living in the Wadi Ara region in northern Israel.
Farrer and Sherva’s study will recruit an equal number of people over age 60 who either have AD or are considered cognitively normal and will include 3,000 MENA Jews and 1,000 Arabs, all living in Israel. Participants will have blood samples taken and analyzed for DNA and biomarker studies; undergo clinical and cognitive testing; and provide a medical history and lifestyle information.
This is a five-year grant, and the research augments the national Alzheimer Disease Sequencing Project, which seeks to understand the genetic architecture of AD and related dementias, and targets diverse populations around the world.
Researchers will perform whole genome sequencing (WGS) using the DNA samples to identify all unique genetic variants and compare genomes of participants with AD to those in the control group to identify variants that confer higher risk as well as those that protect against AD. They will compare those findings with the results of similar studies on other discrete populations. Project researchers will also analyze plasma from blood samples to look for biomarkers that indicate higher levels of proteins strongly associated with AD pathology in the brain, and then compare these findings with the WGS data to identify genetic variants that influence these protein levels. They will also identify human viruses resident in the whole genome sequence data and then use machine learning methods to search for the joint effects of viruses and genetic variants on AD risk.
END
NIH awards $13.7 million grant to BU researchers investigating genetics of Alzheimer’s disease
They hope to identify new targets for developing drugs to treat or slow processes leading to Alzheimer’s disease
2023-09-15
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Purdue researcher awarded $1.3 million for malaria drug trials in Southeast Asia and Africa
2023-09-15
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – A Purdue researcher is taking a giant leap forward in the fight against drug-resistant strains of malaria in developing countries.
Open Philanthropy has awarded $1.38 million to Philip Low to further validate a drug therapy that he and his colleagues have previously shown to successfully treat the disease. Low (rhymes with “now”) is Purdue University’s Presidential Scholar for Drug Discovery and the Ralph C. Corley Distinguished Professor of Chemistry in the College of Science.
For years, experts ...
Study: No evidence that YouTube promoted anti-vaccine content during COVID-19 pandemic
2023-09-15
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — New research led by data science experts at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and United Nations Global Pulse found that there is no strong evidence that YouTube promoted anti-vaccine sentiment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The study, published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, performed an algorithmic audit to examine if YouTube’s recommendation system acted as a “rabbit hole,” leading users searching for vaccine-related videos to anti-vaccine content.
For the study, the researchers asked World Health Organization-trained participants and workers from Amazon Mechanical Turk to intentionally ...
New ways to predict outcomes of pregnancies with fetal growth problems
2023-09-15
A team of scientists, led by researchers at UCL, have developed new methods to predict outcomes for pregnancies where there are issues with poor growth of the baby inside the womb.
The research, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, involved 142 women from the EVERREST Prospective Study* who had severe early-onset fetal growth restriction (FGR) – meaning their babies were very small on ultrasound scans early in the second half of pregnancy (between 20 and 27 weeks).
Fetal growth restriction affects approximately ...
Sage offers free access to over 1,100 journals to journalists
2023-09-15
Sage offers journalists free access to the articles in all of our 1,100 journals upon request. You can submit your request via this form or contact pr@sagepub.co.uk for more information.
Sage also provides paywall-free links to the Sage articles journalists cite so the audience can read the underlying scholarship for free. To get a paywall-free link to an article in Sage journals, please email pr@sagepub.co.uk with the name of the article and the journal one business day ahead of the publication of the article.
Sage has pledged to improve access to our research both to bridge ...
Medical school awarded grants for enhancing health systems science in both medical and residency education
2023-09-15
Health systems science is an emerging field that focuses on how care is delivered, how health professionals collaborate, and how the health system can improve patient care and health care delivery. The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine (VTCSOM) is a leader in both its education and its research in health systems science. Both are evident in two recently awarded grants from the American Medical Association to study ways to enhance health systems science education, one at the medical education ...
New double z-scheme photocatalyst for selective removal of sulfamethoxazole in water
2023-09-15
In a new study published on 26 July 2023, in the journal Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, researchers from Harbin Institute of Technology, have developed a novel double Z-scheme photocatalyst, called the molecularly imprinted TiO2@Fe2O3@g-C3N4 (MFTC) composite, that selectively removes SMX from water.
Traditional photocatalytic methods have faced challenges with selectivity, often causing the indiscriminate degradation of organic pollutants and coexisting contaminants at high concentrations. However, the MFTC composite was purposefully designed to overcome this limitation by incorporating molecularly imprinted sites on its surface. These specialized ...
Cost of public health insurance for US-born and immigrant adults
2023-09-15
About The Study: The findings of this study of 44,000 low-income, working-age adults suggest that the direct cost of providing public health insurance to immigrants is less than that for the U.S. born, and immigrants’ health care utilization, upon coverage, remains comparatively modest, thus refuting the notion that providing insurance to immigrants imposes a heavy fiscal burden.
Authors: Felix M. Muchomba, Ph.D., of the State University of New Jersey in New Brunswick, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.34008)
Editor’s ...
Newly discovered trigger of Parkinson’s upends common beliefs
2023-09-15
· How two sisters’ misfortune led to discovery
· Findings open a new avenue for therapies
· Drugs need to target neuron synapses before neurons degenerate
CHICAGO --- A new Northwestern Medicine study challenges a common belief in what triggers Parkinson’s disease.
Degeneration of dopaminergic neurons is widely accepted as the first event that leads to Parkinson’s. But the new study suggests that a dysfunction in the neuron’s synapses — the tiny gap across which a neuron can send an impulse to another neuron — leads to deficits in dopamine and precedes the neurodegeneration.
Parkinson’s disease ...
The first local case of mpox caused by an imported case in the Chinese mainland
2023-09-15
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bsheal.2023.07.003
Monkeypox (mpox) is a zoonotic disease caused by the mpox virus (MPXV) that has been primarily limited to Central and West African nations since its discovery. The recent spread of the West African lineage of MPXV in historically unaffected countries has raised concerns for global public health. Despite a significant decrease in global mpox cases, there is still a risk of a global resurgence. This study reports the first local case of mpox caused by an imported case in the Chinese mainland. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) diagnosed the two ...
Klebsiella, a hitherto underappreciated zoonotic pathogen of importance to One Health
2023-09-15
https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.15212/ZOONOSES-2023-0016
Announcing a new article publication for Zoonoses journal. Members of the genus, Klebsiella, are becoming increasingly challenging to control due to the recent convergence of multidrug resistant (MDR) and hypervirulent (hv) phenotypes in some species of concern to One Health .
This article provides an introduction to this bacterial genus in the hospital and other settings, update Klebsiella taxonomy, and comment on recent findings describing the prevalence of Klebsiella species in the food chain, a hitherto infrequently recognised ecologic niche. The paper also ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
Breaking new ground in health care: Setting the standard for XR clinical research with the RATE-XR guideline
Unlocking worm strategies: A path to innovative vaccines and therapies
Students are less likely to feel safe at their schools, compared to staff and parents
SwRI announces joint industry program aimed at advancing heavy-duty hydrogen refueling infrastructure
Webb telescope’s largest study of universe expansion confirms challenge to cosmic theory
By age six, children think boys are better than girls at computing and engineering, new American Institutes for Research study shows
Hair growth drug safe at low doses for breast cancer patients
Giving a gift? Better late than never, study finds
Judging knots throws people for a loop
Not so simple machines: Cracking the code for materials that can learn
Finding the weak points: New method to prevent train delay cascades
New AI cracks complex engineering problems faster than supercomputers
Existing EV batteries may last up to 40% longer than expected
Breakthrough AI model can translate the language of plant life
MASH discovery redefines subtypes with distinct risks: shaping the future of fatty liver disease treatment
Three-quarters of Earth’s land became permanently drier in last three decades: UN
Lower-quality public housing is at high risk of flood damage
Study compares soft tissue sarcoma rates among U.S. military servicemen and men in the general population
Toxic air in Texas high schools
What motivates Americans to eat less red meat?
Sugary drinks significantly raise cardiovascular disease risk, but occasional sweet treats don’t, scientists find
Falsifying anthropics
New West Health-Gallup poll reveals most Americans worried about often hidden healthcare fees
Developing wastewater treatment units that treat right where it's generated
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia researchers find rotavirus vaccine is safe for use in NICU babies
New international guidelines announced for Premature Ovarian Insufficiency (POI)
Supporting parents through “unimaginable pain” of losing child – new toolkit developed for clinicians involved in Child Death Review
Could online technology be a clue as to why boys in Norway are outperforming girls in learning English as a second language?
A healthy diet helps the weighty battle with chronic pain
ASH 2024: Antibody shows encouraging results for treating high-risk follicular lymphoma and marginal zone lymphoma
[Press-News.org] NIH awards $13.7 million grant to BU researchers investigating genetics of Alzheimer’s diseaseThey hope to identify new targets for developing drugs to treat or slow processes leading to Alzheimer’s disease