John Hamilton

Feeling heartbroken?

People who inherit two copies of a gene called ApoE4 face at least 10 times the average risk for Alzheimer's.

But Dr. Susan Abushakra of the biotech firm Alzeon says existing treatments often cause dangerous side effects in these people.

So Alzion has been testing a drug that appears to be safer but has yet to prove its effectiveness.

In a study of 325 people with two copies of the ApoE4 gene, the drug failed to help people with more severe symptoms of Alzheimer's.

But in people with milder symptoms, the drug helped preserve memory and thinking and dramatically reduced brain atrophy.

John Hamilton, NPR News.

In Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative diseases, nerve cells decide to self-destruct long before they should.

So biotech companies are looking for ways to keep these cells alive by blocking signals that start the fatal process.

Doug Green of St.

Jude Children's Research Hospital says several firms think they can do this with treatments known as antisense drugs.

Antisense drugs can keep a cell from making certain proteins.

In this case, the drugs are designed to reduce proteins that carry the signals responsible for programmed cell death.

John Hamilton, NPR News.

In 1989, Richard Robson of the University of Melbourne, Australia, showed how to make molecular structures that resembled porous diamonds.

But these structures, called metal-organic frameworks, tended to collapse until two other scientists found better assembly methods.

One of these scientists is Omar Yagi of the University of California, Berkeley.

The other is Susumu Kitagawa of Kyoto University in Japan.

Kitagawa told reporters that these new molecular structures could improve the heavy metal cylinders used to transport liquefied natural gas.

John Hamilton, NPR News.