ARTICLE DATEARTICLE AUTHOR AUTHOR EMAIL December 09, 2020
A top exercise researcher and colleagues at the University of Virginia School of Medicine have launched an ambitious effort to understand the whole-body benefits of exercise, so that doctors can use that information to prevent and treat disease.
Zhen Yan and his collaborators aim to identify the sources, functions and targets of the molecules that provide exercise’s well-documented health benefits. By understanding this, doctors will better understand how exercise helps fend off disease, and they may be able to design drugs to mimic those benefits for people who cannot exercise, such as those with limited mobility.
Zhen Yan, SUNY Distinguished Professor
Department of Physiology and Biophysics
Memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) may be able to be restored by inhibiting certain enzymes involved in abnormal gene transcription, according to a preclinical study by UB researchers. The findings could pave the way toward new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.
The paper was published Dec. 9 in Science Advances.
“By treating AD mouse models with a compound to inhibit these enzymes, we were able to normalize gene expression, restore neuronal function and ameliorate cognitive impairment,” says senior author Zhen Yan, SUNY Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB.