ProMIS Neurosciences selects lead vaccine candidate PMN400

ProMIS Neurosciences announced the selection of a lead vaccine candidate, PMN400, against multiple synucleinopathies including Multiple System Atrophy, Parkinson’s disease and Lewy Body Dementia. The pioneering work that enabled this stage of development to be achieved was made possible through a $1.16 million research grant by the Weston Family Foundation to the University of British Columbia to support the research of the team led by Neil Cashman, M.D., ProMIS Chief Scientific Officer and Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia. The team also includes Scott Napper, Ph.D., from the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) and Professor of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Immunology at the University of Saskatchewan, Marco Prado, Ph.D., the Canada Research Chair in Neurochemistry of Dementia and Professor of Anatomy & Cell Biology / Physiology and Pharmacology, at the University of Western Ontario, and Joel Watts, Ph.D., Canada Research Chair in Protein Misfolding Disorders and Associate Professor within the Department of Biochemistry and the Tanz Centre for Research in Neurodegenerative Diseases at the University of Toronto. Using a proprietary computational platform, ProMIS identified potential conformational epitopes unique to toxic alpha-synuclein involved in synucleinopathies. Formulations of several of these epitopes were tested in mouse vaccination studies leading to the selection of a lead vaccine candidate for testing in mouse models replicating cognitive and motor deficits of human disease. Results from the vaccination studies are being submitted for presentation at the 2024 meeting of the American Academy of Neurology taking place from April 13-18, 2024 in Denver, Colorado.