Amyloid plaques are a hallmark of some neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s. Even though the exact role of amyloid protein in the disease is not clear, being able to follow amyloid protein misfolding and plaque formation could be a step forward for the study of the disease. Now, Matthew Lew‘s lab has developed a new optical microscopy method that allows to look at the orientation of single molecules in the amyloid protein.

Since all biochemical reactions involve interactions among molecules, and those imply movement and certain displacement, it might be possible that these misfolded protein aggregates causes disruptions to these interactions, leading eventually to death. That is why the team developed this imaging methodology to be able to understand these molecular movements.

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