16th EUFEPS Talks

We want to invite you to the 16th EUFEPS Talks on May 13, 2024 at 4 pm CEST.

José Luis Lanciego will give a talk with the title: "Modeling Parkinson’s disease in non-human primates".

Abstract:

Despite all of the progress being made in basic research, disease-modifying therapeutics for neurodegenerative disorders are still lacking. The main bottleneck in CNS drug development is represented by the pressing need to develop better animal models, i.e. models mimicking the main neuropathological hallmarks that typically characterize these disorders. Although the classical model of Parkinson’s disease (PD) in non-human primates (NHPs) treated with the dopaminergic neurotoxin MPTP has settled most of our current understanding of basal ganglia function and dysfunction, this model is useless for the development of neuroprotective therapies intended to slow-down or even stop disease progression. The recent availability of several different adeno-associated viral vectors (AAVs) has opened interesting avenues for modeling neurodegenerative disorders caused by the abnormal aggregation of misfolded proteins, leading to new NHP models mimicking the underlying neuropathological signatures with unprecedented levels of accuracy. Here we will introduce two novel NHP models of PD based on AAVs coding for either human tyrosinase or mutated alpha-synuclein genes, as representative examples of prodromal and late stages of this disorder, respectively.

CV:

José L. Lanciego’s current research focuses on gene therapy approaches for neurodegenerative diseases using non-human primate models. His team is taking advantage of viral vectors for the purposes of disease modeling as well as for the development of disease-modifying therapeutics for Parkinson’s disease and related synucleinopathies. He is the Chair of the International Brain Research Organization Pan-European Committee and a Board Member of the European Brain Council. He has published 135 papers with an h index of 49. In September 2019, he has co-founded Handl Therapeutics B.V. for pushing forward the development of novel therapies for Parkinson’s disease.

Registration:

A registration is needed for this event. Please use the following link: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUod-itpjooHdWLFEJpfR8N4kgwGSJiLqQ6. After the registration you will receive an E-Mail with the log-in details.