Category: Project

Project financed by ELA up to: 100 000 €

Project financed by ELA up to: 97 900 €

Project financed by ELA up to: 60 000 €

Krabbe leukodystrophy (KD) is a progressive and fatal neurologic lysosomal storage disorder that usually affects infants and causes death before two to three years of age. Hematopoietic Stem Cell Therapy extends the long-term survival with improved quality of life for KD patients, but it is not a cure. Using our newly developed KD animal model, we will identify which brain cell(s) needs to be efficiently cured with therapy.

Project financed by ELA up to:  71 082 €

Metachromatic Leukodystrophy (MLD) is a rare demyelinating disease, due to arylsulfatase A (ARSA) deficiency, an enzyme involved in the catabolism of sulfatides, the main component of the myelin sheath. This deficiency leads to progressive demyelination of central nervous system and peripheral neuropathy. The most frequent form of the disease is the late infantile form of the disease which is characterized by a rapid progression of the disease, especially after the first onset of symptom. Ex vivo gene therapy develop by the group of Alessandra Biffi, and based on engraftment of lentiviral transduced hematopoietic stem cells has been shown to be effective for presymptomatic forms of MLD but not effective in early symptomatic patients, probably due to the rapid evolution and the time needed for the engrafment. On the other hand, enzyme replacement was shown as potentially effective but needed a chronic delivery. In the group, we previously proposed a gene therapy approach for MLD based on intracerebral delivery of an AAVrh.10 encoding ARSA. We had established proof of concept in mouse model of the disease and scale up study in non-human primates (NHP) leading us to propose a clinical trial which included 4 patients from 2013 to 2016. Despite ARSA expression in the brain and detection in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) we failed to obtained any therapeutical benefits in these patients. Our point is that expressing ARSA in the CNS is fundamental to rapidly stop the disease progression, however, it could be essential also to bring back in patient healthy microglial cells. This project aim at establishing the proof of concept of rapid, sustained and important ARSA expression in the whole CNS (brain, spinal cord) and potentially also in the peripheral nerve. To achieve this aim, we propose to use a novel serotype of AAV: AAVPHP.eB that has been engineered to efficiently cross the blood brain barrier (BBB) after IV delivery. The project will be divided in two main parts, first a rapid study in the MLD mouse model both for pre and post symptomatic treatment, in order to evaluate efficiency of AAVPHP.eB-ARSA vector for biodistribution, ARSA expression, sulfatides correction, Purkinje cell prevention and behavioral testing. In a second phase, we want to test this vector in NHP thought several routes of delivery: intravenous (IV), intrathecal (IT) and intracerebroventricular (ICV), especially by potential coupling of these routes of administration to optimize CNS targeting. This with the final aim to propose a clinical trial for symptomatic MLD patients.

Project financed by ELA up to: 100 000 €

Hypomyelination with Brain stem and Spinal cord involvement and Leg spasticity (HBSL) is a leukodystrophy caused by defective cytoplasmic Aspartyl-tRNA synthetase (DARS). This enzyme is involved in building proteins, a fundamental biological process in bacteria and man alike. HBSL is caused by autosomal recessive mutations in the DARS gene and all point mutations identified result in neurological disease. HBSL is a potentially fatal spectrum disorder with no treatment and unclear etiology. In a pioneering effort our team at the University of New South Wales has generated the first mouse model of HBSL by introducing the same mutations causing HBSL in patients into the mouse Dars gene. Accurate animal models are the prerequisite to study the disease mechanisms and to develop and test treatments. Moreover, we have already identified that DARS expression in the brain of both mouse and man is enriched in neurons with far less expression in glia. This suggests that neurons might be the cells that a first line HBSL therapy should ideally target. In the first aim of this research proposal, we plan to engineer more mouse models that genetically mimic HBSL mutations and characterize them in order to model different forms of severity of HBSL. The second aim will be to develop a gene therapy platform for expression of a healthy copy of the DARS gene in mice. These experiments will help to identify the optimal route of delivery and the best timing for intervention. In the third aim we will perform a proof-of-concept gene therapy in the most relevant mouse model using optimized paramemters for DARS gene therapy identified in the previous aims. This project will yield an accurate animal model of HBSL that will be instrumental for preclinical testing of gene therapy or other treatment avenues. We propose that this study will generate data with high clinical relevance as our preclinical endpoints and gene therapy platform could easily be adapted for the treatment of other leukodystrophies caused by abnormal protein translation.

Project financed by ELA up to: 97 575 €

4H syndrome, an inherited brain white matter disorder (leukodystrophy), leads to considerable clinical handicap, ranging from mild to severe. Most patients deteriorate over time. There is no treatment yet, and we do not understand what goes wrong in the brain. There are no good animal models for this disease, hampering research. We think that besides white matter and myelin, also the nerve cells (neurons, also called grey matter) and their processes (axons) are damaged from early disease stages on. In our project, we want to explore this grey matter involvement with an innovative approach.

We are able to make white and grey matter cells from 4H patient and control fibroblasts. Earlier studies showed that 4H patient cells show affected expression of genes involved in nerve cell development. As nerve cells provide signals to white matter cells and myelination, neuronal defects could underlie abnormalities found in grey and white matter areas in 4H patient brains. We want to study co-cultures of both grey and white matter cells derived from patient cells to know how they influence each other. In the future, this might be a good model for drug screening to treat 4H.

Project financed by ELA up to: 99 565 €

Megalencephalic leukoencephalopathy with subcortical cysts (MLC) is a rare genetic disorder characterized by an abnormal head, loss of motor functions, epilepsy and mild mental decline. The disease is caused by mutations in two genes named MLC1 and GLIALCAM. There are no therapies for MLC patients, only palliative treatment. Interestingly, some patients with GLIALCAM mutations show a remitting phenotype, suggesting that it may be possible to improve the phenotype of MLC patients, even at later stages of the disease.

We present here a gene therapy preclinical therapeutic approach for MLC patients using two animal models of the disease, the Mlc1 and the GlialCAM knock-out mice. Therapeutic genes will be delivered by one-time treatment to the CNS, overcoming the difficulty of crossing the blood-brain barrier. We hope that the results of this project will be able to provide the first therapeutic tools for patients affected with MLC and may have also implications to treat other diseases affecting the myelin.

Project financed by ELA up to: 57 600 €