Alexander Disease News
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New research reveals parallels between Alexander disease and other neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s disease
New research from Waisman investigator, Tracy Hagemann, PhD, associate research professor, delves into the cognitive impairments and associated molecular changes caused by Alexander disease (AxD), revealing similarities to other neurodegenerative diseases like…
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We need to know STAT: Mechanisms behind GFAP accumulation in Alexander disease involve transcription factor STAT3.
The hallmarks of Alexander disease, aggregation of misfolded GFAP proteins and dysregulation of brain cells called astrocytes, may be stopped and reversed in rodent models with the inactivation of the transcription factor…
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Alexander disease: A lifetime’s work in the hope of saving lives
Messing wanted to study if the overexpression of GFAP resulted in a certain reactive response in the brain.
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Two Waisman investigators named research professors
Two Waisman investigators were recently awarded a new professor title track at UW-Madison.
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Promising treatment for Alexander disease moves from rat model to human clinical trials
Alexander disease is a progressive and rare neurological disorder with no cure or standard course of treatment. But a new study led by researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison involving a rat…
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Waisman Center launches new fund to advance intellectual and developmental disabilities genomics research
The Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, launched a new fund to support interdisciplinary research in the area of intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) genomics.
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Mutation in common protein triggers tangles, chaos inside brain cells
In a study published today, Waisman Center investigators Su-Chun Zhang, Albee Messing and colleagues point to new understandings of the broad range of effects that result from the GFAP mutation impacting astrocytes…
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Whirling the Waisman Way with Team Tristan
Picture a crisp October morning in Madison, Wisconsin – the bright colors of fall leaves, mists over the blue waters of Lake Mendota and – on one Sunday (the 14th this year)…
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Progress made toward treatment for rare, fatal neurological disease
After more than a decade of work, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Waisman Center reported promising results in the lab and in animal models that could set the stage for developing…
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Madison County girl hopes to help unlock cure of rare disease
Waisman Center Director, Albee Messing, is collaborating with researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia to better understand the progression of Alexander disease, a rare and fatal neurological disorder with no…
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Know Your Madisonian: Albee Messing focuses on Alexander disease
Waisman Center Director, Albee Messing, VMD, PhD, was recently featured in the Know Your Madisonian column by David Wahlberg in the Wisconsin State Journal. To read the full interview, please click here.…
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Researchers make headway toward understanding Alexander disease
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have made a surprising and potentially crucial discovery about Alexander disease, a rare and fatal neurological disorder with no known cure. Using a mouse model for…
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Thoughts of Gratitude: The Rijkaarts
May 18, 2016 Adityarup “Rup” Chakravorty, Waisman Communications Jelte Rijkaart is 10 years old, with a ready smile, dark brown hair and warm brown eyes. He enjoys hanging out with people, especially…
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Tracing a path towards neuronal cell death in Alexander disease
A fruit fly model of a rare, neurodegenerative disease is helping researchers trace the series of steps that lead to neuronal cell death. Damage to astrocytes – star-shaped cells found in the…
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Messing named director of Waisman Center
Albee Messing, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of comparative biosciences and an international leader in research on Alexander disease, has been named director of the Waisman Center, UW-Madison School of Medicine and…
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Rare disease research and treatment
A rare disease can be isolating when few people have it and there is no cure.
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Rare disease yields clues about broader brain pathology
Alexander disease is a devastating brain disease that almost nobody has heard of — unless someone in the family is afflicted with it. Alexander disease strikes young or old, and in children…
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After 40 years, Waisman Center still at forefront of research on the brain
The telegram from President John F. Kennedy to University of Wisconsin President Fred Harrington was both eerie and visionary. Eerie because it was delivered Nov. 20, 1963 – just two days before…
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Waisman Center: Celebrating 40 years of advancing knowledge about developmental disabilities
Although its roots are deeper, going back to its earliest iteration as the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Memorial Laboratories in the early 1960s, the Waisman Center this year celebrates 40 years of…
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The Waisman Center: Decades later, what would Harry think?
Last fall, the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison bid successfully for the same National Institutes of Health core grant that the late Harry Waisman first won 45 years ago.
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Screen yields drugs that could help treat fatal brain disorder
Using novel screens to sort through libraries of drugs already approved for use in human patients, a team of Wisconsin researchers has identified several compounds that could be used to treat a…
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Spanish mother’s search leads to the Waisman Center
“Don’t give up, my love, or I’ll give up with you, because I only live to see the fulfillment of this dream: that you may continue to live. Yours is a life…