Common cause of both neurological diseases such as dementia and motor neuron diseases
Shortly before Wang received that call, he had published a paper in Nature Medicine (2016) in which he and his colleagues had shown that the symptoms of ALS in mice could be completely reversed by the infusion of a small-molecule peptide, PM1. Wang showed that PM1, an inhibitor of a mutated, dysfunctional protein, TAR DNA-binding protein 43 (TDP-43), could alleviate mitochondrial dysfunction and neuronal loss, and could significantly improve motor and cognitive function in previously impaired mice. Wang is troubled by the fact that PM1 is not a viable drug in humans and that he cannot yet lend a hand to the troubled father. However, he is confident that there are other safe and effective drugs that could mimic the actions of PM1. He just has to find one, in a hurry. Wang's team published a study in the January 2017 issue of Molecular Therapy that is seen as confirming the relevance of this neurotoxic pathway, according to an accompanying editorial by Eloise...