PRECIPITA selects UAB Alzheimer's disease crowdfunding project

Researchers from the UAB Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, directed by Professor Sandra Villegas (SGR-GRC-2014-00885), have successfully treated mouse models with Alzheimer's disease thanks to an antibody fragment. With a single abdominal shot and after only five days, the animals improve their memory and learning capacity as a consequence of eliminating toxic aggregates and an increase in the number of neurons.

To continue with the project, researchers launched a crowdfunding campaign through the FECYT's PRECIPITA platform. The objective was to collect the €25,000 needed to buy a chromatograph, an essential tool to perform further research.

Alzheimer's disease is the most common type of dementia and the main cause of disability and dependence in the world. It is a chronic, degenerative disease which cannot be cured. One of the most recent research strategies is immunotherapy, the administration of antibodies obtained in the laboratory to fight against the disease. The problem with this strategy is that antibodies produce severe side effects in patients, namely neuroinflammation.

The research group led by Professor Villegas has managed to produce an antibody fragment which can reach patients without creating any of the neuronal damage observed when the whole antibody is administered, and which eliminates the molecule causing the disease, thereby protecting the neurons from cell death.

The research group is working on two projects to transfer knowledge to a pharmaceutical company and finally make the drug available to patients. The first project, funded by the Institute of Health Carlos III (FIS-PI13-01330), focuses on demonstrating the safety of the drug; and the second, funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Government of Catalonia (PROD-14-0028), aims to demonstrate that an improved variant has more therapeutic capacities. "Nevertheless, these projects cannot cover the costs of a chromatograph, a machine we need to urgently replace and which will allow us to purify the fragments of antibodies obtained through recombinant DNA techniques and protein engineering", Dr Villegas points out. She goes on to conclude that "if we achieve to make a drug based on this strategy, it will not be a palliative treatment as the ones used now, it will actually cure the disease".

For more information:
PRECIPITA project website