ND BIOSCIENCES AWARDED A GRANT FROM THE MICHAEL J. FOX FOUNDATION TO DEVELOP MORE ACCURATE ASSAYS FOR EARLY DIAGNOSIS OF PARKINSON'S DISEASE, AND DIFFERENTIATING PARKINSON'S DISEASE FROM OTHER NEURODGENERATIVE DISEASES

ND Biosciences announced today that it was awarded a grant by The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) for its Biomarkers and Diagnostic development program. The grant was awarded jointly to ND Biosciences and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases, group of Prof. Markus Zweckstetter.

One of the main challenges for developing therapeutics to treat Parkinson’s disease (PD) is having reliable biomarkers that show meaningful changes during disease progression, distinguish different PD subtypes, or distinguish PD from other neurodegenerative disorders.

Recently, several assays based on the amplification of aggregated forms of the protein alpha-synuclein (α-Syn) in cerebrospinal fluid or skin biopsies have shown promise in differentiating PD from control cases with high accuracy. However, these assays are not yet robust enough to be used to monitor disease progression or stratify PD patients.

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