My Newest Discovery

A quick update first; my friend is receiving much needed assistance from friends, colleagues, and even some people she has never met before. Just reinforces my already strong belief that the human spirit is still amazingly good. Some that is...

Tau Proteins

My life as I know it has changed so incredibly much in the last year it is unbelievable. I don't usually go into a lot of self-disclosure in this forum; today I am making an exception. You could ask why...Most likely you don't care. That's okay! A little over one year ago I was living in San Jose del Pacifico, Oaxaca, in Mexico determined to live there and somehow slip off into oblivion; never to contribute, never to share myself, never to grow, never to dream again. Man oh man, how life changes sometimes?

I am in the process of preparing my transfer contracts and completing some rather boring General Education requirements to leave the inspiring grounds of Palomar College (San Marcos, CA) to head a few miles down the Pacific Coast to La Jolla, California, home to one of the finest research universities in the world, The University of California-San Diego. This is a privilege and honor reserved for some of the world's most talented minds. It is amazing that I will be there soon. Maybe even more amazing is that I am doing this at 38 years old.

What does this have to do with tau proteins? And if you are like I was, you may not even know what tau proteins are. Don't feel bad...most people don't. But they are so important to us. Read on...

Tau is a binding protein that is known most commonly as the glue that holds together the transport part of our neurons. (If you don't know what a neuron is you might just be at the wrong blog site, no offense.) Six distinct tau isoforms are readily found in the neural soma. However it seems that there is one particular isoform of tau that inappropriately interacts with a certain enzyme, glycogen synthase kinase, and a damaging hyperphosphorylation process is set into motion that many scientists postulate as being the culprit that contributes to the neural death associated with Alzheimer's disease. This is an amazingly complex process that I am just beginning to grasp, but seems that my life's pursuit is becoming just that; understanding and somehow contributing to the unraveling of this devastating disease that has already taken the life of some one I loved dearly, and is in the process of destroying another person in my family.

This disease is possibly one of the greatest challenges that faces our modern day society, with an estimated 5 million cases in the U.S. alone. It has past epidemic proportions by even the most conservative estimate. Nearly everyone I know has lost someone to Alzheimer's. Most sources agree that once you reach 85 years of age you have a 50% chance of developing AD. I recently read that as our society ages and if we reach a life expectancy of 120 years of age nearly 85% will present some form of AD. These numbers are staggering and appalling.

Dr. Steven DeKosky, my hat is off to you sir and would love to shadow you for even one day.

To all the Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers in the U.S.; especially in La Jolla, the offer is the same...I want to contribute.

To all that have read this...thank you and godspeed.