Very cool news - Medicine

From Neuroscience News:

Major ALS Breakthrough � Common Cause of All Forms of ALS Discovered
The underlying disease process of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS and Lou Gehrig�s disease), a fatal neurodegenerative disease that paralyzes its victims, has long eluded scientists and prevented development of effective therapies. Scientists weren�t even sure all its forms actually converged into a common disease process.

But a new Northwestern Medicine study for the first time has identified a common cause of all forms of ALS.

The basis of the disorder is a broken down protein recycling system in the neurons of the spinal cord and the brain. Optimal functioning of the neurons relies on efficient recycling of the protein building blocks in the cells. In ALS, that recycling system is broken. The cell can�t repair or maintain itself and becomes severely damaged.

The discovery by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine researchers, published in the journal Nature, provides a common target for drug therapy and shows that all types of ALS are, indeed, tributaries, pouring into a common river of cellular incompetence.

Very cool -- a friend of the family had this and died about 40 years ago. Not a good way to go. Stephen Hawking suffers from it -- about 350,000 people worldwide with 50% dying in their first three years after diagnosis. Not a cure but a good place to start.