Partnership with The Michael J. Fox Foundation
Given ND Biosciences’ commitment todeploy its expertise, technical capabilities and integrated platforms to accelerate the discovery and validation of novel targets and therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases (NDs), ND Biosciences has embarked on a strategic partnership with The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) to make available a limited set of its unique proteoforms to members of the scientific community.
This partnership follows ND Biosciences’ successful completion of a project that was supported by MJFF, through which ND Biosciences developed, characterized and validated protein standards that would enable accurate assessment of the levels of α-Syn oligomers in biological samples.
Through this distribution partnership, ND Biosciences will make available well-characterized preparations of α-Syn oligomers and α-Syn monomer controls, to non- and for-profit entities for their own R&D purposes. In addition, given increasing requests from the community, ND Biosciences recently rolled-out the distribution of α-Syn preformed-fibrils (PFFs). These unique protein tools provide a wide-range of discovery and translational research applications, including for structural biology research, protein-protein interactions, target validation studies, high-throughput assay screening, biomarker discovery, assay development and diagnostics.
For all proteins, ND Biosciences applies an integrated battery of orthogonal characterization
techniques to establish protein purity, integrity and conformational properties.
For α-Syn monomers, ND Biosciences performs thorough characterization using mass spectrometry, ultra-performance liquid chromatography (UPLC), coomassie staining, dynamic light scattering and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy.
α-Syn oligomers are characterized by coomassie staining, western blotting, CD spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy.
α-Syn PFFs are characterized by coomassie staining, filtration analysis, western blotting, CD spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, assessment of seeding activity in vitro, assessment of seeding activity in neurons.
Importantly, the full battery of techniques is applied on each generated lot, and the corresponding characterization data of each lot is provided to distributees for their own R&D purposes. This would allow research groups to compare and build-upon data obtained at different labs using the same lot of proteins, thereby improving the quality, reproducibility and integrity of research on NDs. Our ultimate goal by making these unique tools available is to promote collaborations and synergies across the field, that will lead to better treatment options for patients suffering from NDs.
Pricing, ordering information, and sample datasheets are provided below:
| Tool | Conditioning (mg) | Non-profit distributee price (CHF) | For-profit distributee price (CHF) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
α-Syn monomers |
1 |
250 |
300 |
|
|
0.5 |
160 |
200 |
|
|
0.1 |
75 |
90 |
|
α-Syn oligomers |
0.5 |
3000 |
3750 |
|
|
0.25 |
1600 |
2000 |
|
|
0.1 |
700 |
900 |
|
α-Syn PFFs |
0.5 |
2700 |
3300 |
|
|
0.25 |
1450 |
1800 |
|
|
0.1 |
600 |
800 |
Bulk orders and larger amounts of individual proteins are to be discussed with ND Biosciences. We also welcome discussions on collaborative projects and partnerships related to our protein engineering platforms and ability to reproduce the normal and pathologic proteoforms of other proteins linked to NDs (e.g., Amyloid-β, Tau, α-Syn, TDP-43 and huntingtin).