Northwestern Events Calendar

Mar
5
2018

"The AFFITOPE-Based Specific Active Immunotherapy (SAIT) - Challenges for Translating Positive Preclinical Results into Clinical Therapies in Neurodegenerative Disorders"

When: Monday, March 5, 2018
4:00 PM - 5:00 PM CT

Where: Ward Building, 5-230, 303 E. Chicago Avenue, Chicago, IL 60611 map it

Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students

Contact: Liz Barrera Murphy   (312) 503-4892

Group: Department of Pharmacology Seminars

Category: Lectures & Meetings

Description:

The Department of Pharmacology welcomes Gergana Galabova, D.V.M., Ph.D., Head of Neurodegeneration Department at AFFiRiS AG.

The following is an overview of this seminar as described by Dr. Galabova:

Despite intensive research and increasing understanding of the underlying pathology, neurodegenerative disorders, and in particular Alzheimer's- (AD) and Parkinson's (PD) disease are still categorized as chronic diseases with unmet medical needs. In the last two decades immunotherapy has been considered as novel and promising approach for their prevention and/or treatment. And in fact, a number of pre-clinical proof-of-concept studies (POCs) successfully demonstrated the potential of passive and active immunotherapy to interfere with the disease, especially in terms of disease modification and slowing the disease progression. Nevertheless, a complete and efficient translation of novel immunotherapies from animal models into human still faces a number of challenges. In addition, immunotherapy, especially the active vaccination against self proteins, such as aBeta or aSynuclein, which are believed to play a crucial role in the disease onset (AD and PD, respectively), raises questions regarding potential autoimmunity. Thus, the development of specific active immunotherapy (SAIT) targeting self proteins is still controversial. The AFFITOME® technology is an innovative solution to this problem. It gives the opportunity to avoid autoimmunity, despite targeting self proteins by so called functional mimotopes or AFFITOPEs®. These are the antigenic components, which mimic the original epitopes of the target protein and are able to generate target specific antibodies. AFFITOPE®- and mimotope-induced antibodies are designed to bind preferentially the aggregated pathological form of the target protein. AFFiRiS completed several Phase I studies and a Phase II study in the field of neurodegeneration, in particular PD, MSA and Alzheimer and confirmed the technology as safe. However, larger outcome studies are required for confirming the efficacy of the AFFITOPE®-based specific active immunotherapy approach and the successfully translation from positive preclinical results into clinical therapies.

Add to Calendar

Add Event To My Group:

Please sign-in