This text is part of the Research special section
The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, named Neuro and affiliated with McGill University, has since its founding in 1934 become the largest research and clinical institution specializing in neuroscience in Canada. He has been working with an early-stage drug discovery platform for roughly a decade, which has enabled numerous partnerships with major pharmaceutical and biotech companies such as Montreal-based eNUVIO Inc. By working together, they hope to find ways to treat neurological disorders or neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease.
Neurological disorders can affect anyone at any age. They burden the individual and their family. The same is true for movement disorders such as Parkinson’s disease. But understanding these diseases is quite a problem, because the brain is a complex organ of the human body, reminds Thomas Durcan, director of the Early Phase Drug Discovery Platform, which was created in 2015. Its goal is to accelerate research work and find therapies. The scientific community thus has access to all data thanks to this platform.
This allows stem cells to be harvested from an individual’s skin or blood sample. Using these tests, Mr. Durcan is developing discovery tests and 3D mini-brain models for neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. He leads a team of more than 35 researchers and students investigating the underlying causes of complex neurological disorders. “The long-term strategy focuses on identifying new therapies that can enter the clinical evaluation phase,” he explains. The researcher focuses on Parkinson’s disease as well as drug development for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. “We are learning more about Parkinson’s disease, especially which cells are affected, but we don’t know everything yet. We are trying to understand with the cells what the first stages of the disease are in order to better understand why this is happening,” he emphasizes.
New approaches and fewer ethical problems
The platform uses new approaches at the cutting edge of technology. Here is Élise Faure, co-founder of the company starting up eNUVIO Biotechnology Inc. based in Montreal. It produces new cell culture devices for neurological research. “We provide a physical laboratory tool for growing neurons, either in 2D or 3D,” explains M.me Faure. The company has also created a platform for three-dimensional growth of mini-brains “with microfluidics and compatible with standard robotics in the pharmaceutical industry,” he adds.
Élise Faure reminds us that while neurological models are still largely based on animal models, the goal is to find another way, especially with in vitro models. “In this way, many ethical problems are eliminated because we are using stem cells from patients obtained through a simple blood test,” he points out. These new techniques also make it possible to perform very early stage drug screening on human cells. “It’s very powerful for speeding up drug development,” he assures.
An expanding platform
Initially, the platform started with a single cell line. He now has nearly 150 cell lines from different people that can be used to make brain cells. The platform designed a patient bank in this way. “So we can ask the cells a lot of different questions,” says Durcan. The established protocol allows for a regular supply of cells from different types of patients, including those who have undergone brain interventions.
In particular, some companies can contact Thomas Durcan to test new technologies through this early stage drug discovery platform. “The real goal is to make all the data available to try to reduce the research time as much as possible,” he says. This platform also presents an opportunity for the researcher to share and communicate research results. “This allows us to describe in detail the materials and methods used,” he explains. Because with this platform, the researcher also hopes to make science more open and accessible to the general public.
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