{"id":1394,"date":"2025-06-04T11:10:25","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T15:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/big\/?p=1394"},"modified":"2026-05-22T16:59:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T20:59:16","slug":"lukens-lab-research-featured-in-uva-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/big\/2025\/06\/04\/lukens-lab-research-featured-in-uva-today\/","title":{"rendered":"Immune System Discovery Reveals Potential Solution to Alzheimer\u2019s Disease"},"content":{"rendered":"

June 2025 – The pioneering research of John Lukens, PhD, Jessica Thanos, and colleagues may be the key to stopping cognitive decline associated with the AD. Their research reveals that an immune molecule called STING drives the formation of the harmful plaques and protein tangles thought responsible for Alzheimer\u2019s. Blocking the molecule protected lab mice from mental decline. STING also may be a key contributor to Parkinson\u2019s disease, ALS (Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease), dementia and other memory-robbing conditions. That means that developing treatments to control its activity could have far-reaching benefits for many patients facing now-devastating diagnoses. Their findings were recently published in Alzheimer’s and Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.<\/a> Congrats to all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

June 2025 – The pioneering research of John Lukens, PhD, Jessica Thanos, and colleagues may be the key to stopping cognitive decline associated with the AD. Their research reveals that an immune molecule called STING drives the formation of the harmful plaques and protein tangles thought responsible for Alzheimer\u2019s. Blocking the molecule protected lab mice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-1394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-events","tag-intranet"],"acf":false,"yoast_head":"\nImmune System Discovery Reveals Potential Solution to Alzheimer\u2019s Disease - Center for Brain Immunology and Glia (BIG)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/med.virginia.edu\/big\/2025\/06\/04\/lukens-lab-research-featured-in-uva-today\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Immune System Discovery Reveals Potential Solution to Alzheimer\u2019s Disease - Center for Brain Immunology and Glia (BIG)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"June 2025 – The pioneering research of John Lukens, PhD, Jessica Thanos, and colleagues may be the key to stopping cognitive decline associated with the AD. 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