AC Immune Extends Research Collaboration with University of Pennsylvania Focusing on the Pathogenic Protein TDP-43, a Major Driver of Neurodegenerative Diseases

Excerpt from the Press Release:

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, Nov. 04, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — AC Immune SA (NASDAQ: ACIU), a Swiss-based, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company with a broad pipeline focused on neurodegenerative diseases, today announced it is extending its research partnership with leading scientists at the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). The partnership is focused on studying the pathological mechanism of transactive response DNA binding protein 43 kDa (TDP-43) misfolding, aggregation and cell-to-cell transmission.

The successful first two years of the collaboration between AC Immune and Penn demonstrated that TDP-43 aggregates from the brains of donors with different TDP-43 proteinopathies have distinct seeding and spreading capacity in vivo. The proteinopathies studied included amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and different subtypes of frontotemporal lobar degeneration-TDP (FTLD-TDP). These results confirm the existence of distinct pathogenic TDP-43 species and have been published in Neuropathology and Applied Neurobiology¹.

In extending the collaboration with Penn, we aim to further understand the role of these distinct pathogenic TDP-43 species in the different TDP-43 proteinopathies. Through the development of novel experimental models, AC Immune and Penn hope to unravel the underlying mechanisms of cell-to-cell transmission of TDP-43 pathology that could provide new therapeutic strategies to target TDP-43-related proteinopathies.

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