Currently, there is no cure for Parkinson's disease, and existing treatments focus on alleviating symptoms and improving patients' quality of life. Therefore, two professors from the University of La Laguna, Edgar Pérez Herrero and Ingrid Morales Pérez, will develop new therapeutic strategies to help modify the course of neurodegenerative diseases using nanoplatforms that allow the delivery of bioactive molecules to the central nervous system via the intranasal route.
To obtain the necessary funds to carry out this research project, these researchers They will be the first to use the crowdfunding platform from the University of La Laguna. Although this research will undoubtedly benefit Parkinson's patients, the technology developed will be applicable to other neurodegenerative diseases, as well as other pathologies that require drugs to reach the brain, such as glioblastoma, a cancer of the central nervous system. The campaign is supported by the Parkinson Tenerife Association and has received collaboration from the General Foundation of the University of La Laguna and the DISA Foundation Chair for Young Entrepreneurs at the university.
Starting today, individual contributions and free donations are accepted, and corporate sponsorship is permitted through six tiers. For large companies, there are three sponsorship levels: Bronze (€1,000), Silver (€2,500), and Silver (€5,000). Three micro-sponsorship tiers have also been included for smaller companies: Bronze (€150), Silver (€300), and Gold (€500).
Ingrid and Edgar, who belong to the research group Encapsulation and Advanced Biological Evaluation, They need these funds to obtain preliminary results that will make them more competitive in major funding opportunities and attract the attention of large investors who can further their research. In just a few days, they have secured 29 donations, two companies have become micro-sponsors of the campaign, and more than €3,000 has been raised. There are still 35 days left for these researchers at the University of La Laguna to reach the minimum funding needed to advance their research and slow the progression of neurodegenerative diseases.
The project will be carried out in two phases. If the minimum budget of €21,850 is secured, a nanosystem will be developed and optimized to deliver drugs to the central nervous system via the intranasal route, using levodopa as a model drug. In a second phase, if additional funding is obtained up to a total of €47,725, the developed prototype will be used to deliver inhibitors of LRRK2 protein kinase activity to neurons and/or to deliver antisense oligonucleotides that block protein production in a Parkinson's disease model.
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