NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Applied Proteomics and The ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI) are collaborating to validate protein biomarkers for tracking the progression of, and developing therapies for, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also called Lou Gehrig's disease.
"The absence of viable diagnostic and therapeutic tools for managing and treating ALS is tragic," John Blume, CSO at Applied Proteomics, said in a statement.
Blume said that his firm is "combining our systems engineering approach for proteomics-based biomarker discovery with their unique collection of focus, research talents, disease models, and experimental data."
ALS TDI has already provided Applied Proteomics with mouse spinal cords that serve as a preclinical model for ALS, and the firm has used mass spectrometry to isolate and study and quantify changes in protein expression. Cambridge, Mass.-based ALS TDI has been comparing the data from those studies to a proprietary RNA expression database.
The company said that the efforts are "a crucial first step in order to determine the reliability of protein markers identified through the process."
Currently, there are no homogenous protein biomarkers for ALS, the partners noted.