Gene therapy using ‘zinc fingers’ may help treat Alzheimer’s disease, animal study shows

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Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Researchers have used a genetic engineering strategy to dramatically reduce levels of tau—a key protein that accumulates and becomes tangled in the brain during the development of Alzheimer’s disease—in an animal model of the condition. The results, which come from investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Sangamo Therapeutics Inc., could lead to a potentially promising treatment for patients with this devastating illness.

As described in Science Advances, the strategy involves a gene regulation technology called zinc finger protein transcription factors (ZFP-TFs), which are DNA-binding proteins that can be…

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