Dec 15 2012
AxoGlia Therapeutics SA, a biopharmaceutical company which drives the development of innovative neural stem/progenitor cell differentiation and neuroprotective therapeutics, today announced that it has been awarded a Rapid Response Innovative Award from The Michael J. Fox Foundation, for a project that is performed in collaboration with the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB).
The Michael J. Fox Foundation grant will be used to study the "Modulation of the CD40/CD40-Ligand neuroinflammatory pathway in Parkinson's preclinical models." This project could open a new avenue for therapeutic interventions in Parkinson's disease, where current approaches are limited mainly to dopaminergic replacement therapies. Dr. Djalil Coowar, AxoGlia's CSO and Principal Investigator, and his colleague at LSCB, Dr. Manuel Buttini, expect that by blocking neuroinflammation through the disruption of the CD40-CD40L pathway, a neuroprotective, disease-modifying effect will be achieved.
"Modulating neuroinflammation in Parkinson's disease could prove to be of therapeutic benefit and we are grateful to The Michael J. Fox Foundation for their support to our innovative strategies that identify neurorestorative and neuroprotective drug candidates," said AxoGlia's CEO Jean-Paul Scheuren.