Dr. Silvia Pozzi, Jean-Pierre Julien and colleagues have designed a second antibody therapy against misplaced TDP-43, the most obvious cellular problem in ALS.
2020 has seen several announcements in this area, which could create a vaccine against ALS. Penetrating the cell is a challenge. Promis neurosciences had announced that they designed a peptide (a tiny protein) targeting TDP-43, and JP Julien's lab worked on single chain antibodies. Single chain antibodies are miniaturized antibodies, their size is roughly half of a normal antibody.
Now JP Julien's team now announced that they successfully designed and tested a monoclonal antibody on a mice model of the disease. Some signs that they have hope it may progress towards clinical trials is that they tested several administration modes and applied for a patent (US 15/532,909).
This is great news and a further step toward a vaccine, as monoclonal antibodies production is well controlled.
