Investigating Immunisation Strategies for the Treatment of Synucleinopathies

Medical Research Council UK & United Neuroscience project grant –  £70,000

Next generation immunisation strategies have enabled the manufacture of highly efficacious vaccines to treat major global diseases which are currently untreatable. United Neuroscience (UNS), a biotechnological company, has aimed to overcome the current vaccine challenges in the field of neurodegenerative disease by designing highly targeted vaccines which elicit a protective immune response. Synucleinopathies comprise a group of neurodegenerative diseases that are characterised by primary alpha-synuclein (α-Syn) pathology such as Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB), Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Multiple systems atrophy (MSA). The central role of α-Syn in the pathogenesis of these diseases highlights it as a promising target for therapy. In this study we aim to test the effects of novel α-Syn vaccines developed by UNS on preventing the onset and progression of neurodegeneration in mouse models of these synucleinopathies. In order to investigate this, we first need to understand the pathway along which α-Syn is naturally cleared from the brain and we can then establish how immunotherapy modulates this process and evaluate the neuroprotective effects of this as a treatment.