ND BioSciences aims to accelerate the development of early diagnostics and therapies for neurodegenerative diseases including Parkinson’s disease. The startup has announced the receipt of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) grant for its Protein Science and Discovery program.
Based on more than 20 years of groundbreaking research by its founder, Prof. Hilal Lashuel, ND Biosciences, based at Biopôle Lausanne, has developed powerful proprietary technologies and innovative tools that enable for the first time reproducing, at both the biochemical and structural levels, the proteoforms and pathological species found in the brain and biological fluids of patients suffering from neurodegenerative diseases. The company’s focus areas include Alzheimer’s disease, and Tauopathies, Parkinson’s disease and Synucleinopathies, Huntington’s disease and Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
ND BioSciences has received a grant from «The Michael J. Fox Foundation» to help advance the foundation’s α-Synuclein biomarkers discovery and validation programs. The grant is bestowed onto companies that are developing new solutions or enhancing existing therapies for patients living with Parkinson’s disease. Recent recipients from Switzerland include AC Immune, Aleva Neurotherapeutics and Asceneuron.
As part of the grant, ND-BioSciences will apply its unique technologies and expertise in the protein biochemistry of neurodegenerative diseases to help accelerate the development of biomarkers and assays for early diagnosis, patient stratification and monitoring Parkinson’s disease progression. This will be achieved through the development, characterisation and validation of protein standards that would enable accurate assessment of the levels of α-Synuclein oligomers in biological samples. This will pave the way for the development of robust assays to assess the potential of α-Synuclein oligomers as biomarkers for early diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and to differentiate between different synucleinopathies.
Close collaboration with MJFF
ND BioSciences will also provide the technical expertise required to support the implementation of α-Synuclein oligomer assay development research-programs supported by The Michael J. Fox Foundation.
“We are delighted to work closely with MJFF to address some of the key bottlenecks in the field of Parkinson’s biomarker discovery through the generation of these valuable tools, which we plan to make available to the entire scientific community,” said Bilal Fares, director of research and development at ND BioSciences.
(Press release)
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