Student guest post by Ron Bedford
The NYT (Kolata, 2010) recently published a story we'd all like to believe in. After their "lab's usual end-of-the-week beer hour," two Harvard neurology researchers noticed similarities between not only genes associated with both the innate immune system and Alzheimer's disease (AD), but structures, characteristics, and actions of selected proteins as well. Dr. Rudolph E. Tanzi, Dr. Robert D. Moir, and their team found "striking similarities" between the well-known innate immune system protein, LL-37, and amyloid β-protein (Aβ), long considered a waste…