Science Spotlight: Restoring calcium homeostasis for Alzheimer’s, a gene therapy foam, and more

Belgium-based reMYND N.V. and collaborators revealed the mechanism behind the biotech’s Alzheimer’s disease therapy in a study published in Science. The company’s goal is to restore calcium homeostasis in patients’ neurons, and its target — SEPT6 — is a new one for the disease. The protein is a component of septin filaments, cytoskeletal elements that regulate store-operated calcium channel (SOCC) activity.

Dysregulated calcium signaling has long been implicated in the synaptic dysfunction that occurs early in Alzheimer’s disease, as well as in the subsequent loss of neurons. But given the myriad functions of calcium in neurons and other cells throughout the body, identifying a highly selective and safe method of tuning synaptic calcium signaling has been challenging...