Estimated Read Time:
2 minutes
Estimated Read Time:
2 minutes
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has no cure, but Dr. Jiming Kong and his team are working hard to find one.
Kong, a professor of human anatomy and cell science at the Max Rady College of Medicine, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, said that one reason ALS occurs is because a protein called SOD1 gets twisted into the wrong shape and causes trouble in the body.
To fight this, Kong said he and his team have created a molecule called CT4 peptide that can find the bad SOD1protein and send it to the cell’s trash bin.
“When we tested this peptide in mice that have ALS it slowed down the disease from starting and helped them live more than 20 per cent longer,” said Kong, adding that they’ve patented this idea.
If we’re successful, it’ll bring us closer to launching a clinical trial and testing this treatment on people with ALS.
ALS is a fatal disease that damages nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. This leads to the loss of muscle control needed to speak, move and breathe.
Kong recently received $500,000 over three years from the ALS Society of Canada and the Brain Canada Foundation to further this research.
With this funding, Kong now plans to use a tiny virus to deliver the CT4 gene into nerve cells of mice. He said the gene will tell the cells to make the CT4 peptide themselves, so they can clean up the bad SOD1.
“We’ve got two main goals: First, we want to see how well this virus trick gets the peptide into brain cells and keeps the bad SOD1 cleared out over time. And second, we want to test how much it helps the ALS mice feel better,” said Kong, who is collaborating on the project with his research associate, Dr. Teng Guan.
Kong said this new method could keep nerve cells healthy and may stop ALS from ever starting.
“If we’re successful, it’ll bring us closer to launching a clinical trial and testing this treatment on people with ALS. It might even lead to new ways to treat other brain diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease down the road,” Kong said.
This new method gives them hope because Kong said it goes right to the heart of what causes ALS by getting rid of the harmful SOD1.
“But we must keep in mind that this is still at a pre-clinical stage, and we have a long way to go. We’re not there yet, but we’re working on it,” Kong said.
Learn more about Dr. Jiming Kong and his research.
