Parkinson’s disease (PD) involves the progressive loss of dopaminergic neurons, particularly in the substantia nigra. This neurodegeneration is linked to the abnormal accumulation of α-synuclein, a protein that forms toxic aggregates and spreads between cells, damaging them. At the 20th International Conference on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases (AD/PD), held from March 17 to 21, 2026, in Copenhagen, several strategies were presented that aim to modify the course of the disease and offer real alternatives to purely symptomatic treatments.

In what the U.S. FDA has dubbed a milestone move toward fewer animal studies in drug development, the agency published a draft guidance to help sponsors validate new approach methodologies that can bring safe, effective drugs to market sooner based on human-centric data rather than starting off with nonclinical animal pharmacology and toxicology data.

KSP-1007 is a new bicyclic boronate-based broad-spectrum β-lactamase inhibitor that, in combination with meropenem, is under development for the treatment of infections caused by carbapenem-resistant gram-negative bacteria that produce serine- and metallo-type carbapenemases.

Congruence Therapeutics Inc. has closed a $39.5 million financing to advance into its portfolio of small-molecule correctors for diseases of protein misfolding into the clinic.

HORMA domain-containing protein 1 (HORMAD1) is a protein that promotes meiotic recombination and its expression is usually restricted to germ-line cells, although it has been shown to be actively expressed out of context in about 60% of triple-negative breast cancers (TNBCs). A team at The Institute of Cancer Research has found that this aberrant expression in tumor cells perturbs mitotic arrest and generates aneuploidy, leading to a weakening of the spindle assembly checkpoint and in kinetochore-microtubule error correction.