Team:UCL/Background

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BACKGROUND INFO

Alzheimer's Disease

Our project this year blends the fields of synthetic biology and neuroscience. We aim to demonstrate that genetic engineering techniques can be applied to the brain, creating synthetic biological systems capable of rectifying abnormalities in the brain on a cellular and macromolecular level.

Such novel application of synthetic biology could offer new ways to treat brain diseases, such as our target, Alzheimer’s disease, for which most modern pharmaceutical treatment is purely symptomatic.

Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is the most prevalent form of dementia. Symptoms include memory loss, mood fluctuations and problems with communication and reasoning. It is a physical, degenerative condition that causes cell death in the brain.

The box to the left provides an abstract for the page 'Neuropathology'. Clicking the abstract box will direct the user to a page titled Neuropathology where more detail is presented.

Neuropathology

There are many hypotheses on the causes for Alzheimer’s disease, though there are three accepted signs in the brain: plaques, tangles and cell death. We focus on the so called ‘Amyloid Hypothesis’.

Links here

Microglia

Microglia are the resident, mobile immune cells in the brain, performing many of the same roles as one’s white blood cells. In our project, we try to use microglia as a chassis for our genetic circuit.

Links here