UCL Institute of Neurology

An international team led by researchers at the UCL Institute of Neurology has identified a set of tests that could help identify whether - and how - Huntington’s disease (HD) is progressing in groups of people who are not yet showing symptoms.

Professor Sarah Tabrizi, UCL Institute of Neurology and principal investigator of the TRACK-HD study, discusses a new research partnership between the Institute and Horizon Discovery, a technology company that provides researchers with tools to support translational genomics research. Read more: Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News

A new light-based technique for measuring levels of the toxic protein that causes Huntington’s disease (HD) has been used to demonstrate that the protein builds up gradually in blood cells. Published today (17th) in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the findings shed light on how the protein causes damage in the brain, and could be useful for monitoring the progression of HD, or testing new drugs aimed at suppressing production of the harmful protein.

Like cancer and HIV decades before, the solution to stopping dementia in its tracks has remained stubbornly intransigent. But there is hope.

The race to find a cure for dementia has never been more critical: within ten years there will be around one million people in the UK with this devastating condition – many of whom will spend their last few years severely impaired and dependent on others for care.

The NHNN and UCL Institute of Neurology are at the research epicentre and have recently been awarded grants totaling over £30 million.

18 April 2012

Congratulations to UCL Institute of Neurology scientists, Dr David Werring and Professor Nick Fox, who are part of an international team of scientists that has recently been awarded funding from the Centres of Excellence in Neurodegeneration (CoEN) to study how vascular disease contributes to neurodegenerative disease. The project, titled Standards for Determining the Vascular Contribution to Neurodegeneration, aims to create a common, albeit expert set of definitions and terminology to describe neuroimaging findings related to diseases affecting brain small vessels. These diseases, including hypertensive arteriopathy and cerebral amyloid angiopathy, are among the commonest to affect the brain and are key causes of stroke and dementia.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has visited the Dementia Research Centre at UCL as part of this morning’s government announcement that dementia research funding will be doubled to £66 million by 2015.

A new centre dedicated to the understanding and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases will be established at UCL following the award of a £20million grant from the Wolfson Foundation, it was announced today.

Source: The Lancet/The Lancet Neurology Press Release

TRACK-HD investigators, including UCL Institute of Neurology researchers have identified a set of objective, validated measures that can be used to assess new treatments for Huntington’s disease (HD). The study, published last week in The Lancet Neurology, should increase the likelihood of success of future trials of new drugs to delay the onset and reduce the severity of HD.

Source: Alzheimer’s Research UK Press Release

UCL Institute of Neurology PhD student, Hannah Golden, is embarking on a project to understand the causes of hearing problems in Alzheimer’s disease, thanks to an £88,000 grant from Alzheimer’s Research UK, the UK’s leading dementia research charity. It’s hoped the study, which is the one of the first of its kind, could improve diagnosis and lead to new ways of helping patients cope with their symptoms.

Congratulations to UCL Institute of Neurology professor’s Martin Rossor and Anthony Schapira, who have both been awarded funding in the first ever Centres of Excellence in Neurodegeneration Research (CoEN) initiative. CoEN, an international collaborative of research funders including UK’s Medical Research Council, launched the initiative last year, with a remit of bringing together researchers from labs across the globe to further our understanding of neurodegenerative diseases and identify new ways of treating these diseases.

Links
Professor John Hardy’s webpage
Alzheimer’s Association

14 July 2011

Links

Dr Jonathan Schott’s webpage
Department of Neurodegenerative Disease

Scientists are one step closer to understanding the genes associated with the rare neurodegenerative disease, progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), according to a study published in the current Nature Genetics. The genomewide association study was completed by an international consortium of researchers, including members of UCL Institute of Neurology’s Reta Lila Weston Institute (RLWI).

Scientists funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) have shown that one minute of exposure to infecting prions is enough to begin the chain reaction of events which lead to prion disease in the brain, causing Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form of Mad Cow Disease, far quicker than previously estimated.

A new model of prion disease may represent a paradigm shift in the mechanisms thought to underlie these infectious, neurodegenerative disorders.

The world’s first accurate blood test for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) has been developed by IoN scientists at the MRC Prion unit. The prototype, which is 100,000 times more sensitive than any previous attempt, could transform the diagnosis and screening of the brain disease.

A range of new clinical, functional, and neuroimaging tests developed by researchers in the Department of Neurodegenerative Disease make it possible to track the progression of Huntington’s disease long before noticeable symptoms appear.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) and a team from the Department of Neurodegenerative Disease have conducted a sensitive examination of tonsil specimens to detect the presence of the variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) related prion protein, and found results that are consistent with earlier estimates of vCJD prion prevalence in Britain.

Scientists in the Department of Neurodegenerative Disease, Dementia Research Centre are beginning an important study to shed new light on the workings of a rare form of Alzheimer’s disease, made possible by a major grant from the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, the UK’s leading dementia research charity.

Exciting research will develop an essential research tool for dementia scientists around the world.

Figures from UCL Neuroscience feature strongly in the newly announced elections to the Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

New research reveals that stem cells in the brain can turn to brain cancer.

Normally, adult brain stem cells form more mature cells such as nerve cells (neurones) astrocytes (supporting cells) or oligodendrocytes (myelin forming cells that wrap around processes of neurones). Researchers at the Division of Neuropathology at UCL Institute of Neurology have shown that different mutations in the stem cells turn them into different types of brain cancer.

A community in Papua New Guinea that suffered a major epidemic of a CJD-like fatal brain disease called kuru has developed strong genetic resistance to the disease, according to new research by Medical Research Council (MRC) scientists, from the MRC Prion Unit in the UCL Institute of Neurology.

The Institute is delighted to congratulate Professor Elizabeth Fisher (Department of Neurodegenerative Disease) on her election to membership of EMBO.  EMBO membership comprises 1,420 of the world’s foremost molecular biologists and new members are elected annually on the basis of proven scientific excellence. Fifty scientists from the EMBO membership have received the Nobel Prize. 

As reported in the Times by Mark Henderson: "A new approach to treating Alzheimer’s came closer when a drug was shown in tests to clear the brain of a damaging protein