Huntington’s disease research news. In plain language. Written by scientists. For the global HD community.
New therapies for disorders like Huntington’s disease are on the way, but getting the drugs to enter brain cells can be a major challenge. A group of scientists has redesigned and tested a harmless virus that can efficiently deliver a 'gene silencing' message throughout the brain in mice, much further than naturally occurring viruses can reach. What's more, it can be given with a simple injection into the blood, offering great potential for research in gene silencing research and beyond.
Because brain cell death drives symptoms in Huntington’s disease, these cells steal the spotlight in disease-related research. But new research on the brain's blood supply has uncovered changes in HD that could be making it harder for the brain cells to cope with the disease.
Pharmaceutical giant Roche recently described a new drug delivery technology they call the 'brain shuttle'. Why has Huntington's disease been mentioned in so many press releases about this technology, and how much can we hope to gain from this new advance?
Some Huntington's disease researchers believe that drugs protecting against 'oxidative damage' could help HD patients. Existing drugs come with some problems, so a team of scientists have tested a new drug in a mouse model of HD, with encouraging early results.
An enzyme called KMO, which alters the balance of harmful and protective brain chemicals, has been a focus of research into possible Huntington's disease treatments for several years. Now, the first positive results of a KMO inhibiting drug have been published in the scientific journal Cell. HDBuzz investigates...
