Hope for Hawking disease

Thursday July 15th, 2010

Medical school researchers have found a protein that may form the basis of treatment for muscle-wasting diseases.

Researchers believe the protein plays a key role in the nerves that control the muscles.

It is the decay of these nerves that causes conditions such as motor-neurone disease, the disease which afflicts astronomer Professor Stephen Hawking.

The research at Aberdeen University has shown the protein TGFb2 asks like a signal-booster that improves television pictures by amplifying messages in the nerves.

Senior lecturer Dr Guy Bewick has worked with scientists at the University of Otago, New Zealand, on the project, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

He said: "We knew this protein was in muscle cells near the motor nerve endings. It plays key roles elsewhere in the body, including the brain, controlling development or damage and infection responses, but we didn't understand what it did in normal, adult, healthy muscles.

"Our finding gives us a better understanding of how our nerve endings maintain the correct signalling strength as we grow, or take on new activities, like running or weight training.

"It could also point to new ways of treating symptoms of reduced nerve-muscle signalling, such as weakness and tiredness in early stages of motor neurone disease, when failing nerve endings might be boosted enough to work for longer."

He said that injecting the protein into humans would be "highly toxic" but the findings could lead to the development of drugs.

Tags: Australia | Brain & Neurology | UK News

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