(Illustration by Katty Huertas for Science magazine)
Magic or realism?
Recently discovered genetic variants seem to protect against Alzheimer’s disease, suggesting a path toward a cure. But are their powers believable?
August 17, 2026
Since 2023, an international research team known for finding rare genetic variants that shield against Alzheimer’s disease has dropped hints about its biggest prize yet. The scientists named it Macondo, in homage to the fictional Colombian town in One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez, the master of magical realism who died with Alzheimer’s in 2014. Identified in the novelist’s sister, the mutation seemed to protect her into her 90s against the disease that claimed her famous brother and other family members. Its benefits were also said to be evident in a large kindred of Colombians who carry a genetic mutation causing them to develop dementia before age 50.
The Macondo findings, yet to be published, would mark the third discovery of an Alzheimer’s-protective variant in just 7 years by a married couple—ophthalmology researcher Joseph Arboleda-Velasquez of Harvard Medical School and Mass Eye and Ear and neuropsychologist Yakeel Quiroz of Boston University and Massachusetts General Hospital—and their collaborators. Both trained at the Neuroscience Group of Antioquia (GNA), the Colombian research group based in Medellín that unearthed the cohort of early-onset Alzheimer’s families. The two previous mutations they uncovered have been among the most discussed Alzheimer’s findings during the past decade. The research has also won Arboleda-Velasquez and Quiroz global prominence, professional accolades, patents, and tens of millions of dollars in research funding.
The winning streak began in 2019, when a front-page headline in The New York Times—“Why Didn’t She Get Alzheimer’s? The Answer Could Hold a Key to Fighting the Disease”—buoyed hopes for millions of patients and their loved ones. It described a Colombian woman, later identified as Aliria Rosa Piedrahita de Villegas, who carried the devastating Alzheimer’s-causing mutation seen in her large extended family. Known to the researchers as Aliria, she had escaped memory loss until her early 70s, the group reported in Nature Medicine. They posited that this was because she also carried two copies of a rare, possibly protective mutation named Christchurch, after the New Zealand city where it was first detected in a separate medical context.
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