The DR is out

Five years after a Genentech Inc. team proposed that the receptor DR6 might be involved in Alzheimer's disease, the company and The Rockefeller University have concluded that the proapoptotic pathway is unlikely to affect the most overt feature of the disease-amyloid plaque formation.

The Roche unit said that the new findings^1,2 mark the stopping point for its discovery efforts to target DR6 (tumor necrosis factor receptor superfamily member 21; TNFRSF21) in AD. Although the company is backing off DR6, the academics involved in the work think further studies with better disease models are warranted...