Researchers can now study DNA of Alzheimer’s patients. Alzheimer’s disease is the progressive mental deterioration that can occur in middle or old age, due to generalized degeneration of the brain. This data details every gene of each person who participated in this study. The Alzheimer’s disease Sequencing Project was launched in February of 2012 as part of an effort to prevent and treat this disease. The first observations of this study can now be studied and examined.
This research of raw DNA provides a way to find genomic changes that put us at a further risk of Alzheimer’s. Genome sequencing outlines the order of all three billion chemical letters in an individual’s DNA, which is the entire set of genetic data that every person carries in every one of their cells. This project helps to identify genetic risks for the late onset of the disease. In addition, the study can also help discover versions of genes that can help to protect us. This is a big step in the prevention and treatment of this disease. The number of Americans over the age of 65 that have Alzheimer’s is 5 million. However, that number is expected to grow as the baby boom generation gets older.
Genome sequencing is a new and key strategy for identifying clues and factors that cause the disease. When the order of DNA in people without the disease is compared with the DNA of people with the disease, the differences in the order of the letters in the DNA would be the clues that will eventually help combat this disease. More research is continuing to be done by the project to aid in the effort of eradicating Alzheimer’s disease. With 410 people being studied so far, I believe the sample size is large enough to find some interesting and noteworthy data.
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http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=175535
Alzheimers is very near and dear to my heart. My grandma developed this disease early in her life, which created a barrier between her and I. It would be amazing if this breakthrough in detecting Alzheimer’s was valid. However, on a more pessimistic side, the detection of the disease doesn’t prevent the disease itself. It is helpful to have knowledge of your carrying of the disease, but if there still is no cure for it, it is simply still as prevalent in society as it was before genome mapping. Have you done further research to see if there are certain medicines that can suppress early stages of Alzheimers? There are such medicines like Donepezil which can lessen the symptoms of early Alzheimers, but once the disease continues to progress, the medicines become useless. Hopefully one day they will find a cure for this nasty disease!
http://www.nia.nih.gov/alzheimers/topics/treatment
I think this could be a really great break through for the science and medical world. Alzheimer’s disease is incredibly sad and horrible disease that so many are diagnosed with. After reading your blog, I was a bit confused as to why they never tried to use this technique to figure this out before? There are plenty of diseases that need cures but surely someone would have tried to look at these DNA brain cells before now? Lucky for us we are in a world of constantly evolving technology so the only reason I could think of is that they didn’t have the technologies until now. Either way, that would be a good thing to look into for this blog!
While reading this blog, I couldn’t help but think of my aging grandparents and wonder if genes have anything to do in whether or not someone gets Alzheimer’s. Scientists have come to the conclusion that genes do have a large effect on whether a person does get Alzheimer’s but it is not the only factor. The one gene that specifically can cause Alzheimer’s is the APOE e4 gene and if you get it from both sides of the family, you are even more likely to suffer from Alzheimer’s. Other things that can cause Alzheimer’s include environmental factors. So yes, genes do play a large role but they are not the only cause of these terrible disease.
http://www.alzinfo.org/07/about-alzheimers/genetic-risk-factors?mtc=alzheimers_genetic&gclid=Cj0KEQjwq52iBRDEvrC12Jnz6coBEiQA2otXAtc8m5m6JhrqPuaZbUYk5i51e9WrGO7YsaKvJJJfcAUaApF98P8HAQ
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/alzheimers-disease/in-depth/alzheimers-genes/art-20046552