VHIR signs an agreement with Prous Institute to combat Parkinson’s Disease

The Neurodegenerative Diseases group of Vall d’Hebron Institute of Research (VHIR) has signed an agreement with Prous Institute for Biomedical Research to assess in in vivo and in vitro models of Parkinson’s Disease a group of drugs that induce autophagy, which is the process of the cells to dispose intracellular waste.

Five years ago, VHIR researchers found a defect in the system of waste disposal of patients with Parkinson’s Disease. Particularly, they determined that the neuronal cells of these patients present less lysosomes for intracellular degradation. This fact causes the accumulation of toxic proteins, called Lewy bodies, which can induce the neuronal death.

With this collaboration agreement, the aim of VHIR researchers, led by Dr. Miquel Vila and Dr. Marta Martínez-Vicente, is to assess the potential neuroprotective effects of novel autophagy-inducing pharmacological compounds developed and patented by Prous Institute. “If we try to reactivate the mechanisms of intracellular waste disposal, we could remove the toxic proteins that neurons accumulate over the years in the case of neurodegenerative diseases; thus, we could keep the neuronal function and prevent or delay the death of these cells”,explains Dr. Vila.

On the other side, the president of Prous Institute for Biomedical Research, Dr. J. R. Prous, is very pleased to have signed this agreement, because “thanks to the combination of our bioinformatics systems and the experimental validations that will be carried out at VHIR, we will be able to advance in the research of more effective and safer treatments in the field of Parkinson’s disease and to be extended to other pathologies of the central nervous system”.

The drugs that VHIR will test have been obtained through the SYMMETRY platform, developed by Prous. This system integrates computational tools and methods aiming to replicate in silico the processes through which new drugs are discovered, developed and approved. SYMMETRY is used by major pharmaceutical companies and enables the generation of new research hypotheses and elucidates the pharmacological and safety profile of small molecules through a wide range of predictive models.