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Research Highlights

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 7, 476–477 (1 June 2008) | doi:10.1038/nrd2598

Neurodegenerative disease: A new pathway to autophagy

Charlotte Harrison

Stimulating autophagy — a major cellular clearance route for intracellular protein aggregates — could represent a therapeutic strategy for Huntington's disease. However, the only drug that has been shown to induce autophagy in the brain is rapamycin, a mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) kinase inhibitor that modulates several cellular processes besides autophagy.