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Yeast Reveals New Drug Target for Parkinson’s
Posted on by Dr. Francis Collins
Credit: Daniel Tardiff, Whitehead Institute
Many progressive neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, and Parkinson’s disease, are characterized by abnormal clumps of proteins that clog up the cell and disrupt normal cellular functions. But it’s difficult to study these complex disease processes directly in the brain—so NIH-funded researchers, led by a team at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, MA, have turned to yeast for help.
Now, it may sound odd to study a brain disease in yeast, a microorganism long used in baking and brewing. After all, the brain is made up of billions of cells of many different types, while yeast grows as a single cell. But because the processes of protein production are generally conserved from yeast to humans, we can use this infinitely simpler organism to figure out what the proteins clumps are doing and test various drug candidates to halt the damage.
