Investigating aberrant neuronal calcium regulation by calpain in Alzheimer s Disease

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People who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease (AD) have severe memory loss and dementia. These symptoms are caused by the progressive and relentless death of nerve cells in the brain that we use for memory, recognition and most brain functions that give us our personality. My research is aimed at investigating why nerve cells die in AD because if we can prevent this cell death then we will have effective treatments for this devastating condition. I will focus on events that increase the amount of calcium inside nerve cells. Normally there is a balance between the amount of calcium entering and leaving nerve cells, but in AD this process is disrupted and excess calcium inside nerve cells causes them to die. My project will investigate the reasons for this calcium imbalance. I will also use animal models to test the effectiveness of drugs that should restore the calcium balance to determine whether they can prevent the nerve cell death that is characteristic of AD. This work may lead to a new strategy for treating AD which can be developed by the pharmaceutical industry and could result in a new generation of treatments for this devastating illness.