Synthetic molecules show promise in blocking Parkinson's protein clumps in mice

For decades, the proteins at the heart of Parkinson's disease have resisted medicine's most familiar tools — not because they hide, but because they offer no obvious place to grip. A team of researchers has now introduced SK-129, a synthetic molecule engineered to act as a brace rather than a key, holding the alpha-synuclein protein in a shape that prevents it from clumping into the toxic masses that destroy neurons. Tested in cells and mice, this approach belongs to a broader class of molecules called foldamers, which may finally give science a handhold on diseases that have long seemed beyon