FunGen-AD-funded research uses cerebrospinal fluids to develop new Alzheimer’s drugs

Research focused on identifying genes associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) commonly relies on postmortem brain tissue or blood samples; however, these sources provide a limited view of the disease. Post-mortem brain tissue usually represents late-stage AD, and blood is not specific to the brain. An international group of investigators, including Functional Genomics Consortium investigator Carlos […]

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FunGen-AD-funded research discovers new functions of tau proteins in neurodegenerative diseases

Tau protein accumulation is a common feature of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s disease (AD). A publication from a group of researchers, including FunGen-AD researchers Lindsey Goodman, Hugo Bellen, and Josh Shulman from Baylor College of Medicine and the Duncan Neurological Research Institute of Texas Children’s Hospital, provides new evidence that the tau protein has protective […]

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FunGen-AD-funded research identifies genetic variants that raise Alzheimer’s risk for Black individuals

Common variants in the ABCA7 gene are known to increase risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD), particularly in Black people. Interestingly, ABCA7 variants are more strongly linked to AD in Black people than variants in the well-known APOE4 gene. FunGen-AD-funded researchers Badri Vardarajan, Caghan Kizil, and Richard Mayeux were part of an international research team […]

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FunGen-AD-funded research identifies molecular mechanism underlying blood-brain-barrier dysfunction in Alzheimer’s disease

Blood-brain-barrier (BBB) dysfunction is a key feature of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but the underlying molecular changes associated with this dysfunction are not well understood. A group of researchers, including FunGen-AD researchers Caghan Kizil, Richard Mayeux, and Badri Vardarajan from Columbia University, focused on pericytes and astrocytes of the gliovascular unit (GVU), cells that support the […]

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FunGen-AD-supported research identifies modulators of the Alzheimer’s disease biomarker sTREM2

Previous research has shown that levels of the protein sTREM2 in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) decrease in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) compared with cognitively normal individuals; however, these sTREM2 levels are higher than normal in late-stage AD. The role of these fluctuations in AD progression is unknown. An international group of researchers, led […]

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FunGen-AD-funded research identifies immune regulators in Alzheimer’s

FunGen-AD researcher Alison Goate was part of a team of researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai that used genetic and genomic tools to uncover new information about regulators of the macrophage transcriptomic state. These discoveries could provide therapeutic targets for modulating macrophage function in Alzheimer’s and other diseases.

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