In Search of an Alzheimer’s Drug
Medicine
A new study will test the effectiveness of the drug solanezumab at preventing Alzheimer’s disease before it starts. Erol Veznedaroglu and Carol F. Lippa, both professors in the College of Medicine, will examine solanezumab’s ability to reduce the formation of amyloid plaques, which many believe cause the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. The plaques can appear in the brain years or even decades before a person shows any symptoms of Alzheimer’s. “Clearing out the amyloid is like clearing out the kindling before the fire starts,” says Lippa, the principal investigator.
Cholesterol vs. Malaria
Medicine
The key to stopping malaria may be the same thing that stops our hearts: cholesterol. Akhil Vaidya, professor in the College of Medicine and director of Drexel’s Center for Molecular Parasitology, discovered that two different small-molecule drugs will add cholesterol to the malaria parasite’s membrane. This triggers a complex cascade of events that changes the parasite’s outer membrane and also tricks it into early reproduction, which renders the parasite inert. Malaria is the world’s deadliest parasite and kills more than 300,000 people per year, according to the World Health Organization. Current drug treatments quickly lose their potency. By understanding how new drug candidates stop malaria, Vaidya hopes that he and his team can reveal more about the parasite’s vulnerabilities, which could lead to the creation of more effective drugs against the disease.
Taste Test Gone A-Rye
Hospitality and Sport Management
Can you tell the difference between bourbon and rye? Probably not, according to a study conducted by Jacob Lahne, assistant professor in the Center for Hospitality and Sport Management. In a blind taste test of American ryes and bourbons, participants were more likely to group products by brand than type of whiskey.
Flushed
Engineering
A way to both save water and money could be falling from the sky. Drexel researchers led by Franco Montalto, associate professor in the College of Engineering and director of the Sustainable Water Resource Engineering Lab, figured out that residents in Philadelphia, New York, Seattle and Chicago get so much rain they could be capturing the water in rain barrels and using it to flush a ton of toilets — enough to cut household potable water demand (and water bills) by 25 percent.
Double Panda Trouble
Arts and Sciences
Climate change threatens the world’s giant panda population from two different fronts. James Spotila, L.D. Betz Chair Professor in Drexel’s College of Arts and Sciences, along with a team of researchers at the Chendgu Research Base in China, found that although there’s currently enough bamboo in nature to keep pandas well fed, rising temperatures could reduce their primary source of food. Giant pandas are also vulnerable to heat stress at temperatures above 77 F, which could put them in double jeopardy if world temperatures continue to rise.
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