A Medical Device Daily

ProteoTech (Kirkland, Washington) reported that it has been awarded a grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Disease Research. In collaboration with Avid Radiopharmaceuticals (Philadelphia), ProteoTech scientists will utilize ProteoTech's small-molecule platform drug technology to develop new imaging agents that will allow doctors to use PET imaging to identify and determine the extent of alpha-synuclein accumulation in the living human brain.

Alpha-synuclein is a major protein identified in Lewy bodies in the Parkinson's disease brain, and its accumulation in brain is believed to be important in the motor dysfunction observed in Parkinson's patients. The 1-1/2 year project, titled "18-F-labeled Alpha-Synuclein Ligands for PET Imaging of Lewy Bodies," will be led by Dr. Alan Snow, chairman/president/CSO of ProteoTech, and Dr. Franz Hefti, CSO of Avid.

ProteoTech is in its 4th year of a LEAPS award funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation to develop a new small molecule targeting alpha-synuclein in Parkinson's brains. ProteoTech's Synuclere has been demonstrated to inhibit alpha-synuclein aggregation in the brains of genetically engineered mice that develop motor dysfunction, when alpha-synuclein deposits aggregate and accumulate in brain.

The LEAPS award consortium led by Snow includes research teams from University of California-San Diego, Boston University, Boston College and Medchem Source (Federal Way, Washington).