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ISSUE 56
OCTOBER 2008
Happy returns
Career Re-entry Fellows profled
Heart o the matter
Ethnicity and cardiovascular disease
Striking a chord
Guitarist’s recovery rom brain tumour
The Glasgow Spy
 A tale rom the Wellcome archive
Wellcome
News
 
Wellcome
News | Issue 56
Mark WalportDirector o the Wellcome Trust
Wellcome News
Wellcome News
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Editor
Chrissie Giles
Writers
Chris Beckett, Craig Brierley,Chrissie Giles, Chris Newstead,Michael Regnier
Design
Cosima Dinkel
 Assistant Editor
Tom Freeman
Photography
David Sayer
Publisher
Hugh Blackbourn
 All images, unless otherwise stated, are romthe Wellcome Library. Copies o images canbe obtained through Wellcome Images(http://images.wellcome.ac.uk).
 The Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK.It unds innovative biomedical research, in the UKand internationally, spending over £600 million eachyear to support the brightest scientists with the bestideas. The Wellcome Trust supports public debateabout biomedical research and its impact on healthand wellbeing.
www.wellcome.ac.uk
 This is an open access publication and, with theexception o images and illustrations, the contentmay, unless otherwise stated, be reproduced reeo charge in any ormat or medium, subject to theollowing constraints: content must be reproducedaccurately; content must not be used in amisleading context; the Wellcome Trust must beattributed as the original author and the title o thedocument specied in the attribution. The viewsand opinions expressed by writers within
WellcomeNews
do not necessarily refect those o theWellcome Trust or Editor. No responsibility isassumed by the publisher or any injury and/ordamage to persons or property as a matter o products liability, negligence or otherwise, or romany use or operation o any methods, products,instructions or ideas contained in the materialherein. ISSN 1356-9112. First published by theWellcome Trust, 2008. © The trustee o theWellcome Trust. The Wellcome Trust is a charityregistered in England, no. 210183. Its sole trustee is The Wellcome Trust Limited, a company registeredin England, no. 2711000, whose registered oce isat 215 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, UK.
PU-4235.2/13K/10-2008/CDCover: Dr Jennier Rohn, a Wellcome Trust Career Re-entryFellow. See page 5.
editorial
Biology is always fascinating, but there isa particular mystery to neuroscience thatcaptivates and charms. Watching a real-timevideo of a nerve cell growing, sending outits tiny growth cones as it searches for thecorrect path to take, gives us a glimpse at howthe remarkable wiring of the nervous systemis laid down during development. When abee works out the best route to take as it iesbetween owers with just 1 million neurons,it is solving problems that a supercomputercould take a week to answer. And yet suchdelights are tempered by brain images frompeople with Alzheimer’s disease – seeingthe destruction wreaked in the brain by thisneurodegenerative disease brings home thedevastating impact it has on the lives of thoseaficted and on their relatives, friends andsociety at large.At the Wellcome Trust, we are fortunateto be able to fund so many talentedneuroscience researchers in the UK andinternationally. We fund research thatincludes molecular and cellular neuroscience,cognitive, neuropsychological and imagingstudies, and clinical studies investigatingneurological and psychiatric conditions.And, as a browse through the news sectionof our website (
www.wellcome.ac.uk/news
)shows, this research is bringing many newinsights.In the last few months, for example, wehave seen studies of the chemicals that sendmessages between nerve cells showing thatacetylcholine is vital for our brain cells topay attention to a demanding task, and thatserotonin plays a critical role in regulatingemotions such as aggression during socialdecision making. Meanwhile, new retinalganglion cells have been discovered thatcontrol our levels of sleepiness according tothe brightness of our surroundings.Other researchers are using scanners toidentify the parts of the brain that becomeactivated when we perform particular tasks.Such approaches have shown that the ventralstriatum encourages us to be adventurous– it becomes activated when we chooseunfamiliar options – and that the brainregions responsible for stopping habitualbehaviour are underactive in people withobsessive–compulsive disorder and theirunaffected close relatives.The challenge for neuroscience – as in allareas of biomedical science – is to nd ways of taking basic research forward to help people.Some areas have seen considerable success:for example, a modern look at psychologyhas been developed by a cadre of talentedresearchers into highly successful cognitivebehavourial therapies for mental illnessessuch as bulimia nervosa, post-traumatic stressdisorder and panic disorder.But in other areas there is still muchto do, particularly for dementia andneurodegenerative diseases. Indeed,as reported on page 10 of this issue,previous estimates of levels of dementia indeveloping countries may have substantiallyunderestimated the problem – the 10/66Dementia Research Group has found thatthe prevalence of dementia in urban settingsin Latin America is comparable with rates inEurope and the USA.As part of our commitment to investin this area, in October 2007 we awarded£1.3 million funding to a collaborationof leading UK experts to investigate thegenetics underlying late-onset Alzheimer’sdisease. The team is scanning the entirehuman genome in search of the genes thatpredispose people to or protect them fromdeveloping the disease.Now, in a joint activity with the MedicalResearch Council, we have launcheda new scheme of Strategic Awards inNeurodegenerative Diseases. Such diseasestake several different forms, and includeAlzheimer’s disease, frontal temporaldementia, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’sdisease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosisand multiple sclerosis. We hope that this£30m scheme will help to bring greaterunderstanding of the biological processesunderlying these diseases, and will catalysethe development of early diagnosticapproaches and new, effective therapies.
 This document was printed on materialmade rom 25 per cent post-consumer waste & 25 per cent pre-consumer waste. 
50%
 
Wellcome
News | Issue 56
Unravel the strange caseo the
Glasgow Spy
(top),learn about the relationshipbetween
maternal diet andchild health
(above let),discover how jazz guitarist
Pat Martino
regained hismusic ater losing it toamnesia (above right), meetLiverpool’s
lambanana
leishmaniasis sculpture(right), and more…news 2–4unding 6–8research 10–14eaturesBack to the bench 5 Vive la diérence 9Finding Pat Martino 15 The Glasgow Spy 16noticeboard 17in this issue
of 00

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tylerbolinder

Est-ce nous nous somme deja rencontres?

reply10 / 22 / 2009
elsadillard

J'ai trouve un bon nombre de choses intresting ici.

reply10 / 21 / 2009
wavarosenthall

they have a great cms here

reply10 / 20 / 2009
leoniecayne

Tu as des beaux yeux.

reply10 / 19 / 2009
lorriswink

Est-ce nous nous somme deja rencontres?

reply10 / 18 / 2009
lelahorielley

hoppen van pagina aan pagina bezig.

reply10 / 18 / 2009
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