News

A New Gene Called TBK1 May Contribute to ALS

Changes in a house-keeping gene that cleans up damaged proteins from cells may be in part to blame for Lou Gehrig’s disease, according to a study published online March 24 in Nature Neuroscience, titled “Haploinsufficiency of TBK1 causes familial ALS and fronto-temporal dementia.” Lou Gehrig’s…

Biogen Idec’s Rebranding Includes New Focus on ALS

Massachusetts-based pharmaceutical company Biogen Idec Inc. has decided to rebrand the company with a shorter name and a new logo, as well as by refocusing its work and abandoning its near exclusivity to multiple sclerosis (MS) drugs to also include research on conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Hypermethylation May Be Neuroprotective in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Degeneration

A research team at Penn Medicine recently found that hypermethylation is able to inhibit the development of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Frontotemporal Degeneration (FTD) in a study titled, “C9orf72 promoter hypermethylation is neuroprotective: Neuroimaging and neuropathologic evidence.” The results are published in the journal…