Studies put forth existence of a certain amoeba for better treatment and understanding of Alzheimer’s

A study was done by researchers at Royal Holloway, University of London and the Institute of Psychiatry King's College London and published in Journal of Cell Science on 24th January. It talked about the presence of an amoeba in the human body which can help in studying and understanding Alzheimer’s disease in a better way without testing them on animals. Animals are usually used for studying the role of Presenilin protein which plays a major role in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. In animals studying the same poses some problems. They usually cause a loss of viability and stop the development when it is deleted from the cells. As Professor Robin Williams from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway says, "This discovery allows us to examine the role for the human presenilin 1 protein, without the use of animal testing. It is amazing that so simple an organism lends itself to the study of such a complex disease."