Parkinson’s UK invests £1.2m in drug design project

Charity organisation Parkinson’s UK has announced it will fund up to £1.2m into a one-year drug design project in partnership with the University of Sheffield.

The project will aim to refine a molecule that could then be developed into a drug to protect dopamine-producing brain cells and decrease the progressions of Parkinson’s disease.

Previous work, funded by a Parkinson’s UK Senior Fellowship grant given to Dr Heather Mortiboys at the University of Sheffield, identified two molecules with mitochondrial restoration properties.

The £1.2m funding boost comes via Parkinson’s UK’s Virtual Biotech initiative, to further the development of molecules that can boost the function of the brain’s energy-producing mitochondria to halt Parkinson’s.

The new project will unite biology and chemistry experts from the University of Sheffield, Parkinson’s UK and contract research organisations to further develop the modified molecules.

They will aim to develop a drug-like molecule with good efficacy in cellular models of Parkinson’s.

This could then allow future work to be conducted, which would assess the effectiveness of the approach in animal models before potentially progressing into clinical trials in people living with Parkinson’s.

“We’re excited to fund the next stage of this full scale project combining our own drug discovery know-how with experts from the University of Sheffield and two world-leading contract research organisations,” said Arthur Roach, director of research at Parkinson’s UK.

“Looking back, it’s incredible to see how this project had its origin in a small academic grant from Parkinson’s UK to screen for molecules that rescue defective mitochondria inside neurons. Since then, the charity and university have continued to work closely together to improve those initial compounds,” he added.