Probiodrug funds Alzheimer’s treatment research

Probiodrug, a biopharmaceutical company developing novel therapeutic solutions to treat Alzheimer’s, will fund research at the laboratory of Cynthia Ann Lemere, PhD, a neuroscientist at the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH).

The funding  will be used to further investigate the potential of pyroglutamate-Abeta (pGlu-Abeta) antibodies for passive vaccination against Alzheimer’s disease.

Chief development officer of Probiodrug Inge Lues said: “It is the second time we have provided financial support to Dr. Lemere’s team and this demonstrates our satisfaction with the high calibre science performed at this institution. The laboratory has extensive experience and an impressive set of experimental armamentarium to pursue key questions on the role of pGlu-Abeta.”

The Brigham Research Institute (BRI) at BWH is one of the most respected biomedical research institutes in the world and the second largest recipient of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding among independent hospitals in the US. BWH is a teaching hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School.

By providing unrestricted funding to Dr. Lemere’s Laboratory, Probiodrug has extended a long-standing collaboration with BWH that began in 2008. Probiodrug scientists and Dr. Lemere’s team worked on characteriSing the deposition of pGlu-Abeta in different animal models with Alzheimer's-like pathology and to initiate vaccine studies targeting these deposits in transgenic animal models.

The BHW team worked specifically on the pharmacology of anti-pGlu-Abeta antibodies, discovered and generated by Probiodrug, that significantly reduce pGlu-Abeta and plaque deposits in hippocampus and cerebellum in transgenic mice. The research was published in the American Journal of Pathology and Neurodegenerative Diseases (1,2).

(1) Pyroglutamate-3 amyloid-β deposition in the brains of humans, non-human primates, canines, and Alzheimer disease-like transgenic mouse models.

Frost JL, Le KX, Cynis H, Ekpo E, Kleinschmidt M, Palmour RM, Ervin FR, Snigdha S, Cotman CW, Saido TC, Vassar RJ, St George-Hyslop P, Ikezu T, Schilling S, Demuth HU, Lemere CA.

Am J Pathol. 2013 Aug;183(2):369-81. doi: 10.1016/j.ajpath.2013.05.005

(2) Passive immunization against pyroglutamate-3 amyloid-β reduces plaque burden in Alzheimer-like transgenic mice: a pilot study.

Frost JL, Liu B, Kleinschmidt M, Schilling S, Demuth HU, Lemere CA.

Neurodegener Dis. 2012;10(1-4):265-70. doi: 10.1159/000335913.