FRIDAY, Aug. 22 (HealthDay News) -- A new method of identifying protein structures related to Alzheimer's disease has been developed by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The research team says its computer-based technique could help in the development of drugs that could prevent the formation of such structures.

Alzheimer's disease is characterized by two kinds of proteins (amyloid and tau) that accumulate in the brain. In a study published in the Aug. 22 issue of PLoS Computational Biology, the MIT team focused on tau.

TUESDAY, June 3 (HealthDay News) -- A person's risk of cancer increases if he or she suffers from DNA-damaging chronic inflammation of the intestine or stomach, such as ulcerative colitis, according to scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Their findings, confirmed in two studies the researchers did on mice, were published in the June 2 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.