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H2020Doctoral network2018–2022

PET-AlphaSy · PET Imaging of Alpha-Synuclein Fibril Formation

Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2018-09-01 → 2022-11-30
EU contribution
€4,100,370
Participants
17
Scheme
MSCA-ITN

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

PET Imaging of Alpha-Synuclein Fibril Formation

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a devastating neurodegenerative movement disorder. Like other neurodegenerative disorders, PD is afflicted by problems with early diagnosis as well as a lack of effective means for monitoring both disease progression and the effects of treatment. Development of a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) tracer to both monitor efficacy of novel therapeutics as well as use for earlier diagnosis, would improve the potential for development of better treatments against PD immensely. Development of such a PET tracer requires skilled radiopharmaceutical scientists with a multidisciplinary approach. Our consortium consists of the necessary expertise to develop such a PET tracer. Our overall goals are: 1) Development of an α-synuclein (α-syn) PET tracer to monitor Parkinson’s Disease (PD) therapeutic trials, or to diagnose PD at an earlier stage than currently possible (scientific objective). 2) Training of the next generation of radiopharmaceutical scientists to close the gap of existing to required numbers (training objective) and encourage entrepreneurship within the growing radiopharmaceutical market.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Too often, physicians have to rely on a trial and error strategy until the most effective treatment for an individual patient is identified. This leads to a critical loss of time, making the healthcare system ineffective and expensive. In respect to drug development, a high failure rate is apparent at all stages of development and ways to reduce this have high priority for the pharmaceutical industry. To this end, drug development and medicinal treatment need to be more personalized and molecular imaging techniques, in particular Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging, can be used to achieve this by 1) evaluating the effectiveness of new treatments emerging from the pharmaceutical industry, 2) improving the ability to diagnose diseases, and 3) aid tailoring the treatment based on individual patient pathology. A limiting factor to develop new effective PET imaging probes is the insufficient number of radiopharmaceutical scientists presently available. Our consortium has assembled 6 radiopharmaceutical frontline academic and 10 non-academic partners to address this problem and train the next generation of radiopharmaceutical scientists. Our training will be focused on an unmet scientific need for Parkinson’s Disease (PD). Fibril formation of protein α-synuclein is thought to be the hallmark for PD, but presently, there are no validated PET tracers available for visualization of pathogenic aggregates of this protein. Our scientific goal is to develop such tracer. A successful tracer will have a strong impact on PD-diagnosis and facilitate the development of effective disease modifying treatments. To reach our goals, it is necessary to train our early stage researchers in a highly interdisciplinary fashion spanning from chemistry, over biology, GMP and pharmacy to nuclear medicine. Furthermore, this consortium will train entrepreneurial skills and facilitate start up new enterprises in the current favorable radioisotope market situation.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · KOBENHAVNCoordinatorDenmark
  • BIOARCTIC AB · StockholmSweden
  • EBERHARD KARLS UNIVERSITAET TUEBINGEN · TuebingenGermany
  • ELYSIA · LiegeBelgium
  • Eckert & Ziegler Eurotope GmbH · BerlinGermany
  • H. LUNDBECK AS · ValbyDenmark
  • ION BEAM APPLICATIONS SA · Ottignies Louvain La NeuveBelgium
  • JOHANNES GUTENBERG-UNIVERSITAT MAINZ · MainzGermany
  • NOVO NORDISK A/S · BagsvaerdDenmark
  • PMOD TECHNOLOGIES GMBH · AdliswilSwitzerland
  • POSITRONPHARMA SA · SantiagoChile
  • REGION HOVEDSTADEN · HillerodDenmark
  • STICHTING AMSTERDAM UMC · AmsterdamNetherlands
  • TAGWORKS PHARMACEUTICALS BV · NijmegenNetherlands
  • UNIVERSITE DE LIEGE · LIEGEBelgium
  • UNIVERSITEIT LEIDEN · LeidenNetherlands
  • UPPSALA UNIVERSITET · UppsalaSweden

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union