NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – KineMed and CHDI Foundation today said they are extending their collaboration to characterize and track the pathogenesis of Huntington's disease and to evaluate possible therapeutic interventions.
The collaboration leverages KineMed's translational biomarker platform, which is based on the use of mass spectrometry and mass spectroscopy and interrogates the kinetics of biochemical processes of an entire living organism.
The initial study from the partners' 2012 collaboration identified microtubule dynamic deficits and altered protein kinetics in the cerebrospinal fluid of some HD models, the partners said. In ongoing efforts, they seek to "rescue these changes by lowering expression" of the huntingtin protein through an interventional therapeutic approach with the goal of identifying pharmacodynamic biomarkers that can be used in clinical trials.
"By broadening the scope of our exploration we aim to identify biomarkers that can determine target engagement and translate from preclinical models to the clinic," Jonathan Bard, director of molecular pharmacology at CHDI, said in a statement.