The University and biOasis continue to develop biOasis’ extensive intellectual property relating to Transcend and Transcendpep, protein vectors designed to shuttle existing therapeutic drugs across the Blood-Brain Barrier ("BBB") for the potential treatment of previously untreatable Central Nervous System ("CNS") diseases and conditions.
The NSERC Collaborative Research & Development matching fund grant will extend for up to five years, pending continued industry support, with a total value of up to $750,000. The grant commences immediately with the aim of further optimizing the BBB shuttling technology owned by biOasis Technologies Inc., initially for the application to clinical treatment of Lysosomal Storage Diseases ("LSDs").
The award is intended to help expand the collaborative work between biOasis Technologies Inc. and UBC researcher Professor Wilfred Jefferies of the Michael Smith Laboratories. The proposed R&D is based on Dr. Jefferies’ original discovery of a protein molecule that allows therapeutics such as lysosomal enzymes to cross the BBB and enter the brain.
The BBB is formed by the brain capillary endothelium and prevents large-molecule neurotherapeutics and most small-molecule drugs from entering the brain. As a result, many diseases in the brain are untreatable. Overcoming the difficulty of delivering therapeutic agents to specific regions of the brain presents a major challenge to the effective treatment of most brain disorders.
LSD’s are a group of more than fifty distinct diseases that cause physiological and neurological deterioration, predominantly in children. An LSD develops when a particular enzyme is missing or produced in insufficient quantities, resulting in the cellular build-up of toxic by-products that cause disease pathologies throughout the body, especially in the CNS.Dr. Wilf Jefferies is the principal investigator and research team leader with expertise in creating novel platform technologies for the treatment of human diseases.
The research team also includes the R&D team at biOasis lead by Dr. Reinhard Gabathuler and Dr. Mei-Mei Tian and including up to 10 graduate and undergraduate students and research technicians with expertise in bioengineering, nanotechnology, molecular biology, protein chemistry and related disciplines. The teams are focused on optimizing and testing the Transcendpep technology to maximize the delivery of enzymes, biologics and other therapeutic payloads to the brain.
"We’re very pleased that this project has been supported through the NSERC Collaborative Research & Development (CRD) grant. This peer-reviewed research grant provides additional validation and support of our proprietary technologies and approaches for treatment of brain diseases. This grant comes at an opportune time as it will assist in the rapid implementation of new technologies developed in collaboration with UBC for the potential treatment of Lysosomal Storage Diseases and other diseases of the brain," said Rob Hutchison, CEO of biOasis Technologies Inc.