Medicine & Health

The Food and Drug Administration has granted full approval to Leqembi for patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. The School of Medicine’s Barbara Joy Snider, MD, PhD, answers questions about the drug.

People with Down syndrome are at very high risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. A project led by Jason Hassenstab, at the School of Medicine, aims to develop tools to measure cognitive function in people with Down syndrome-associated Alzheimer’s disease.

Members of minoritized racial or ethnic groups and people who live in less affluent neighborhoods are less likely than others to receive specialized care for dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, a new study from the School of Medicine indicates.

Researchers at the School of Medicine and Lund University in Sweden have identified a form of tau that could serve as a marker to track Alzheimer’s progression. The marker also could speed drug development.

A study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine reveals that the bacteria that live in the gut change long before Alzheimer’s disease symptoms arise. The discovery could lead to diagnostics or treatments for Alzheimer’s disease that target the gut microbiome.

With a $2 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant, Matthew Lew at the McKelvey School of Engineering will develop smart microscopes to reveal dynamic interactions between individual biomolecules.

Randall J. Bateman, MD, the Charles F. and Joanne Knight Distinguished Professor of Neurology at the School of Medicine, will receive the 2023 Lifetime Achievement Award in Alzheimer’s Disease Therapeutic Research.

Stress causes the levels of Alzheimer’s proteins to rise in females’ brains but not males’ brains, according to a new study in mice by researchers at the School of Medicine. This difference may contribute to women’s greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

An FDA-approved sleeping pill reduced levels of Alzheimer’s proteins in a small study of healthy volunteers led by School of Medicine researchers. The study hints at the potential of sleep medications to slow or stop Alzheimer’s progression, although much more research is needed regarding such an approach.

Three School of Medicine researchers — Enmanuel Perez, Ibrahim Saliu and Steffen Storck — have received funding from the Alzheimer’s Association for projects that aim to study and make progress against the disease.