Professor Julie Williams © Cardiff University

'cubed' webzine

Anti-allergy parasite
Pancreas protector
Pop hit detector
Body Sensitive Cancer Treatment
Cheaper Smarter phones
Sports Training Tool
Light energy harvesting
Kitchen sink French
Clever cameras
Catalytic clothing
Smart surveillance
Super Broccoli
Kick and click
Pico secure access
Smartphone in Orbit
3D printed plane
Transmitting Data With Light
Brain cell bank
Energy for all seasons
Life-Saving Frogs
Dolphin Therapy
Rainbow money
In a Heartbeat
Restoring Speech
Safer Mosquitoes
Visualising Landscape Changes
Drumming Denim
Genetic clues for Alzheimer’s
Shower-Powered Radio
Assisted-Living Home
Fast-Scan Security
Keeping The Beat
Starfish non-stick drugs
Common Drug Could Reduce Cancer Risk
The Carbon Planet
3D Movie Tool
New Skin for Buildings
Pole Vaulting Pterosaurs
Bees Solve Problem
Rubber Tree Breakthrough
The Camouflage of Cats
Spotting PTSD
Spray on Clothes
The Biology of Thinking
Sphere TV
Driverless bus
Virtual London

Cardiff University

Cardiff University, MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics

Alzheimer’s Society

Information and links about this form of dementia

cubed logo © British Council

Genetic clues for Alzheimer’s

Susceptible brains
It has been suggested that Shakespeare’s King Lear’s serious mental deterioration is a dramatic study of dementia. The progressive confusion of the mind we call dementia affects 820,000 people in the UK. The name comes from the German psychiatrist, Alois Alzheimer, who first described it in 1906.

For the past 12 years, Professor Julie Williams and her team from the School of Medicine at the University of Cardiff have coordinated a project to identify susceptibility genes for Alzheimer’s disease, the most common cause of dementia. They have brought together research groups from several countries, including DNA samples from 25,000 individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and 45,000 without the disease. The ten genes, so far identified, reveal three ways in which the brain is susceptible.

Different reactions
The first difference is the inflammatory response of the brain. Professor Williams explains, ‘Alzheimer himself observed brain tissue that was a marker of the immune response in those brains. We thought this was a normal reaction to things going wrong in the brain, but these genetic findings are telling us that there is something different about the brain’s response and this is actually feeding into developing the disease.’

The second difference, says Professor Williams, is the genes affecting the way ‘the brain processes lipids associated with cholesterol. Cholesterol is an important molecule of the brain, for healthy nerve cells to survive and be active. Again, there appears to be something different about the way the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease are processing these lipids.’

The third difference, Professor Williams describes, ‘is four genes, we have identified, that seem to affect a very specific cellular process called Endocytosis. This controls how big molecules get into and out of cells and how they are processed within those cells. There can be a number of ways that this could go wrong and is a process that we haven’t really prioritised yet in understanding the causes of Alzheimer’s disease.’

Trost © Silke Dietze - iStockphoto
Remove the risk factors
Professor Williams is optimistic, ‘you don’t need to know about all the risk factors to make a big difference. Just taking out the effects of a few of these risk factors could stop people developing Alzheimer’s disease or delay it by five or ten years and that will have an enormous impact.’

LearnEnglish Science activities
Why not do a language activity based on this cubed story, ' Genetic clues for Alzheimers'? You can double-click on any word on this page for a dictionary definition.

DCSIMG