Paige Jarreau is a biomedical scientist turned science storyteller. She has a Ph.D. in mass communication and experience with the study and practice of using multi-media for science storytelling. She currently is a contractor for NIH's Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias (CARD), where she works as science communication manager.
When IRP graduate student Pilar Alvarez Jerez looked at the results of a recent experiment, she noticed that when a particular genetic variant is present in a gene called GBA1, it causes a change in the gene's activity. The GBA1 variant, which is associated with Parkinson’s disease and Lewy body dementia, was discovered last year in people of African ancestry by researchers at NIH’s Center for Alzheimer's and Related Dementias (CARD). It appears to suppress the gene’s ability to make a functional version of an enzyme that helps brain cells recycle their proteins.
“This was an interesting finding, but it still didn’t answer how the variant was functioning to lower enzyme activity,” Pilar says.
IRP Research is Exploring the Role of Immune Cells in Dementia
If you visit a lab at NIH’s Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias (CARD), you may find yourself surrounded by several robots hard at work nurturing the hundreds of sets of genetically modified stem cells that CARD scientists use to study the illnesses that give CARD its name. Many of these cells will be coaxed to mature into the neurons that power our movements, thoughts, and memories — but not all of them. Neurons have long received the lion share of dementia researchers’ attention, understandable seeing as the visible symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease are closely linked to a build-up of proteins — amyloid-beta and misfolded tau — that damage neurons. However, neurons aren’t the only brain cells involved in dementia.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, October 9, 2024
