Protein Discovered in Parkinson’s Disease Could Lead to New Treatments

[Baron1]

news.cuanschutz.edu/news-st...

New research in the Journal Brain that takes scientists one step closer to understanding α-synuclein (αSyn), a key protein that they found links inflammation and Parkinson’s disease.

[MarionP]

Good glory, Wow. This one has potential to become something very much on target. The concept is very exciting even though it may be quite some way off, this definitely has "wow factor" potential!

[Boscoejean]

many of the drugs being investigated are designed to have an effect on alpha synuclein - that said "The protein has therefore become a top target for Parkinson’s drug developers, although trial results to date have disappointed." so the article above is a little surprising at this point because many of the new drugs in clinical trials now are focused on alpha synuclein and have been in development for a few years already (kind of like why is the new news?) The article the quote was extracted from is from April 2022 and it tells about how coordination between pharmaceutical firms to bring some of the research into clinical trials has had some setbacks recently. biopharmadive.com/news/abbv...

[Boscoejean]

this article from 2021: biopharmadive.com/news/nova...

Novartis and UCB will co-develop an experimental pill that aims to slow the decline of Parkinson’s disease patients by targeting an abnormal protein that accumulates in their brains.

UCB0599 is one of several experimental projects looking to block the effects of abnormal alpha-synuclein in the brains of Parkinson’s patients. Some have already faced setbacks or outright failures, including projects from Biogen, Prothena and Voyager Therapeutics.

[Jana86]

In Brain Fables, by Stecher and Estay, they discuss these failures. Just as there has been no progress in ALZ. Removing TAU has no positive impact on symtoms, removing alpha-sinuclien also has no positive impact on PD symptoms. In fact, some studies show that patients get worse! We now know that apha-sinuclien is an excitatory respone that is created by our immune system...rather than a cause of PD, it is more likely a protective effort in response to the body's threat/invasion/insult. This avenue of research appears to be a profound confusion of cause and effect. Analogy: you come from another planet and are trying to figure out why hurricanes happen. You look at the aftermath of one giant storm after another and you notice that they all have one thing in common: dead trees. So you conclude that dead trees must cause a hurricane.

[Gymsack]

wait ahhhhhh did that just take a 180 Degree turnalpa-sinuclin is good now

So discovering how to remove it is no longer a big deal

Too bad these research groups could not talk to each other

[jeffreyn]

These days I find it hard to get very excited about press releases (especially ones with misleading titles). I think I'll wait a bit for an AlzForum article covering this research paper (perhaps including a comment or two from Michael Zasloff et al.). If one eventuates.

[Boscoejean]

this is a clinical trial involving the UCB0599 clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show...