Project description
Treatment targets Parkinson’s disease at its core
Parkinson’s disease (PD) affects millions worldwide, causing both motor and non-motor symptoms due to dopamine neuron degeneration. Current treatments primarily focus on symptom management, leaving an unmet need for therapies that address the underlying causes. In this context, the EIC-funded KevadBio project aims to fill this gap with a groundbreaking approach. Their novel drug mimics the GDNF peptide pathway, penetrating the blood-brain barrier to protect and restore damaged dopamine neurons. This small-molecule compound promotes neuron survival, potentially increasing dopamine levels in brain tissue. Administered orally, it could offer long-lasting relief from PD symptoms, with broader applications for conditions like ALS and neuropathic pain. The project holds promise for revolutionising neurodegenerative disease treatment.
Objective
GeneCode is developing a novel anti-PD drug that contains a central nervous system penetrant compound imitating GDNF peptide pathway activation that alleviates both motor and non-motor symptoms in PD patients, protecting and restoring lesioned dopamine neurons as well as potentially increasing dopamine levels in brain tissue. GeneCodes unique solution uses small-molecule compounds that penetrate the blood-brain barrier, target the GFL receptor complex (containing GDNF protein) and mimic GFL (GNDF family of ligands) biological effects in neurons, promoting survival in the affected dopaminergic neuronal pathways. Once fully developed, the PD drug would be administered weekly or less frequently as an oral treatment. Considering the importance of GDNF family ligands and/or RET-signalling pathways for other groups of cells, applications of compounds developed by GeneCode are not limited to PD, but can be applied to cure other medical conditions such as neuropathic pain, addiction, ALS etc.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesbiochemistrybiomoleculesproteins
- medical and health sciencesbasic medicineneurologyparkinson
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.3.1 - The European Innovation Council (EIC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-EIC-ACC-BF - HORIZON EIC Accelerator Blended FinanceCoordinator
10151 Tallinn
Estonia
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.